Thoughts 27/07/16

Yahoo CEO’s Last Letter To Employees After Verizon Acquired Yahoo For $4.83 Billion!

After months of struggle and long bidding processes, finally, Verizon makes an announcement that it acquired the core business of Yahoo for $4.83 billion. The main goal of this acquisition seems to be merging Yahoo and AOL (Which was acquired by Verizon last year). This is mainly for competing with giants such as Facebook and Google. If you don’t know let us tell you that AOL already owns TechCrunch.

On the other hand, Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo is trying to be happy with this deal, even though it is taking away her job and putting an end to all her efforts that she took for shaping up Yahoo as the last CEO. She wrote a letter to her employees, have a look;

Dear Yahoos,

Moments ago, we announced an agreement with Verizon to acquire Yahoo’s operating business. This culminates a rigorous, thorough process over many months, and yields a great outcome for the company. Today’s announcement not only brings us an important step toward separating Yahoo’s operating business from our Asian asset equity stakes, it also presents exciting opportunities to accelerate Yahoo’s transformation. Among the many entities that showed interest in Yahoo, Verizon believed most in the immense value we’ve created, and in what a combination could bring our users, our advertisers, and our partners.

This is a good moment to reflect on Yahoo’s journey to date.

Yahoo is a company that changed the world. Before Yahoo, the Internet was a government research project. Yahoo humanized and popularized the web, email, search, real-time media, and more.

What really sets Yahoo apart is the shared passion to create great products for our 1B+ users, and in doing so, transforming the world for the better. You can clearly see that spirit, that commitment, that fight in the work we’ve done together over the past few years. We set out to transform this company – and we’ve made incredible progress. We counteracted many of the tectonic shifts of declining legacy businesses, and built a Yahoo that is unequivocally stronger, nimbler, and more modern. We tripled our mobile base to over 600 million monthly users, we invested in and built Mavens from basically zero in 2011 into $1.6B of GAAP Revenue in 2015, we streamlined and modernized every aspect of our consumer products, and, with Gemini and BrightRoll, we dramatically improved our advertiser products. This only scratches the surface of what we’ve achieved … and we all know how much hard work it took to get here.

It’s because of that hard work and resilience, that Yahoo will realize amazing opportunities in its next chapter.

This sale is not only an important step in our plan to unlock shareholder value for Yahoo, it is also a great opportunity for Yahoo to build further distribution and accelerate our work in mobile, video, native advertising, and social. As one of the largest wireless and cable companies in the world, Verizon opens the door to extensive distribution opportunities. With more than 100 million wireless customers, a shared view of the importance of mobile and video ad tech, a deep content focus through AOL, Verizon brings clear synergies to the table. And with their aggressive aims to grow global audience to 2B users and $20B in revenue within the mobile-media business by 2020, Yahoo’s products and brand will be central to achieving these goals. Joining forces with AOL and Verizon will help us achieve tremendous scale on mobile. Imagine the distribution challenges we will solve, the scale we will achieve, the products we will build, and the advertisers we will reach now with Mavens – it’s incredibly compelling.

The strategic process has created a lot of uncertainty, but our incredibly loyal and dedicated employee base has stepped up to every challenge along the way. Through the first half of the year, we met our operational goals and overachieved on plan. But, further, there are things that you cannot measure, like the passion of the people behind the products. The teams here have not only built incredible products and technologies, but have built Yahoo into one of the most iconic, and universally well-liked companies in the world. One that continues to impact the lives of more than a billion people. I’m incredibly proud of everything that we’ve achieved, and I’m incredibly proud of our team. For me personally, I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter.

As we work to close this agreement in Q1 2017, it’s more important than ever that we come together as one global team to continue executing on our strategic plan through the remainder of the year. We have delivered the first half of the year with pride, achieving our goals. Now, it is up to us to make Yahoo’s final quarters as an independent company count.

Yahoo is a company that changed the world. Now, we will continue to, with even greater scale, in combination with Verizon and AOL.

Thanks,

Marissa

thoughts 22/july,16

Sri Sri speaks .. on Worried...

When we are worried about what other people are saying about us, then there is ego. Even when you are doing good, there will be some people who will find fault with it. Similarly, there will be people to praise even if the person is corrupt. So, don't worry about it. If you make a mistake, accept it. That is intelligence. In the same way, others can also make mistakes. Don’t wait for them to ask for forgiveness. You forgive and move on. A mistake happened. Drop it. Don’t keep thinking of past mistakes and chewing on it like gum. It is like churning up a pile of garbage. You must save your mind at all costs. - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Thoughts - 14july,2016

The story of AN Elephant & A Housefly... by sri sri ravishankar

There’s a story. There was a housefly who lived on the leg of an elephant. She used to sit there all day. One day she got angry at the elephant and said, "I am going to leave this elephant!" Just when she decided to leave, the elephant moved a little and caused a lot of dust to rise up. The fly saw the dust and thought, "Oh, see, I have moved so much dust, that a storm is coming. Let it hit the elephant. He will suffer." Now the elephant is not even aware there was a fly sitting on his leg.

This is such ignorant talk saying, "I don't want to give my power to somebody." To whom will you give power? Do you have any power? What power do you have? You don't know what your mind is. You don't know how the mind works. You don't know how your mind acts, at what time, where it leads. It has only led you to so much misery again and again. There is no power at all in the mind. There is power only in the Divine. That is the only source of power. But our shell, our ego, our resistance, our fear makes a resistance, and the resistance in turn protects the fear, so one remains in a small shell. So there's nothing to be afraid of. Drop it.

Thoughts - 13/07/2016

11 Ways How Meditation Adds Value to Your Life

1. Improves Communication Skills

“When the river is calm, the reflection is clearer. When the mind is calm, there is greater clarity in the field of expression. Our sense of observation, perception and expression improve. As a result, we are able to communicate effectively and clearly,” says Bhanumathi Narasimhan, Teacher, Sahaj Samadhi Meditation.

Meditation makes you free from within, helps you drop the inhibitions and the barriers that prevent effective communication.

2. Gives Clarity of Mind

Do you sometimes find yourself swinging between different decisions and feel confused? Meditation is a mind without agitation, a mind that is calm and crystal clear. Confusions settle down and the way ahead opens up naturally. The right decisions, which are a combination of intuition and intelligence, can be made with ease in such a calm state of mind.

3. Nurtures Creativity

Creativity wells up when you meditate. Creativity is the core of our personality; it just needs to be evoked (do we want to say tapped?). Just like we apply heat to pop the corn and it becomes popcorn, meditation taps the inherent creativity.

4. Refreshes the Mind

Most people wait for months to go on a vacation; meditation gives you an opportunity to go on a vacation within yourself in moments. Meditation makes you fresh and relaxed because this is the time when you close the doors of your daily chatter and spend a few minutes with yourself.

5. Rejuvenates You

A snake sheds its skin and moves on with the new skin; if cats and dogs have water on them, they shake it off. However, we tend to carry our emotional garbage for years. Meditation helps to shake that off, feel rejuvenated and helps us move on.

6. Spreads Happiness & Peace

Our mind has the ability to affect our surroundings. Only a peaceful and a happy person can spread happiness around. Meditation creates a ripple of happiness and peace within you, which then spreads like waves all around.

7. Develops a Pleasant Personality

Think about what kind of people you like to be with - happy and joyful or sad and depressed? Happy, right? Similarly when we are happy, our personality reflects that and people look up to us for good company. This is where meditation helps.

8. Gives You an Unshakable Smile

Meditation brings you to a state of being where nothing can rob the smile of your heart. Meditation releases all the toxins and negative emotions stored and each cell becomes so alive and our smile is unshakable no matter what.

9. Makes You a Master of Time

While your happy times fly, don’t sad times seem to drag on? Only in meditation do we transcend time. Meditation adds hours to our day. We are able to do things faster than we normally do. We are also able to find some time for leisure.

10. Gives You a Glimpse of Infinity

Every cell in our body has the ability to hold infinity. However, different concepts in our mind impede us from perceiving the infinite consciousness that is a part of us. When consciousness is cultured with meditation, we take a dip in the ocean of bliss and experience deep rest.

11. Heals & Harmonizes

In meditation, healing can happen. When the mind is calm, alert and totally contented, it is like a laser beam- it is very powerful and healing can happen.

Inspired by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's wisdom talks

8 Success Meditation Mantras for Women Entrepreneurs

If you are a woman entrepreneur looking for more success and better results, here's a secret tool that will help you get there. Meditation - one of the key management skills today. Here are a few quick mantras to help you.

Women today are independent, confident, exude strength and have the potential to carry out every task at its best. And proving equal ability as their male counterpart, they have now ventured out into running successful businesses. However, being a woman entrepreneur has its own set of challenges. Some quick meditation mantras can guide women in this challenging journey. At times when you feel overwhelmed with responsibilities or feel all alone amidst difficult situations, a few minutes of sitting alone with yourself can recharge and rejuvenate you more than you can ever imagine. Besides, meditation adds many more skillsto women entrepreneurs' kitty.

#1: Juggling home and work becomes easy

All women, either working or running their own business, would agree that playing one role is no excuse to be lax with their primary tasks at home as responsible wives, daughters-in-law, or mothers. Sometimes, the pressure can be taxing, especially for business women who don’t always work in 9-5 shifts. A few minutes of meditation during the day can hone the skill to multi- task effortlessly. You will feel fresh and energized to carry out both the duties equally well and also find more time for yourself!

#2: Meditation makes you a natural leader

As a business woman leader, you are a role model for your employees, so it becomes key for you to act with a cool head in all situations as well as remain approachable to your team. Meditation helps polish the intrinsic qualities of a leader – inner confidence, strength, foresight, clarity and unbiased approach to act in the larger interest of the organization.

#3: Right decisions at the right time

When you meditate regularly, see how your intuition becomes so strong that you naturally start making the right decisions that benefit people and organizations in the long run.

#4: Creative solutions to challenges

As a woman entrepreneur, you are sure to come across challenges at every step, but it is important to be able to find appropriate solutions, again in the larger interest of the whole company. This spontaneity is a skill which meditation helps develop. Meditation instills enthusiasm and zeal in women so that you don’t look at challenges as roadblocks and are prepared to tackle them with an open mind and fresh perspective.

#5: Learning mind management

Management forms an essential part of every organization – be it health (ensuring that employees are healthy and productive), financial, or employee management. But the mantra for the smooth functioning of day-to-day operations is Mind Management - that is extremely important for a cordial work environment. As a woman entrepreneur, meditation teaches you how to keep your mind calm, relaxed and centered, which reflects in your behavior with others too. Only then can you inspire people to work together with you.

#6: Being assertive rather than aggressive

Being a woman entrepreneur, it is sometimes natural to compare yourself with men and feel pressured to perform equally well. So you may sometimes find yourself getting aggressive with your employees to get work done or make them listen to you. Meditation can teach business women the skill to be polite yet assertive. You will see an innate strength develop in yourself, to bring a diverse bunch of people together and move ahead as a team. You are able to give your team a pleasant, organized and satisfying working experience.

#7: Conflict resolution

Conflicts are natural to every organization and you have a great responsibility to resolve them. How do you negotiate win-win terms in such situations? How do you make people listen to you who are set in their own ideas of right and wrong? This requires a combination of skill and presence. Both these qualities develop naturally in women with meditation. When you meditate, you also develop the patience to listen to all parties with an open mind and make unbiased decisions.

#8: Creating a harmonious, progressive society

As women, we are born compassionate and so women entrepreneurs should use this innate quality – to create a harmonious and progressive society where people are happy, prosperous and contented. Meditation helps us develop this intent and work towards it. As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, “The role of women today is of utmost importance. In fact, it is the only thing that determines whether a society is strong and harmonious, or otherwise. Women are the backbone of society.”

Inclusive Economics: Enabling the World

The societies and nations of today are driven mainly by their economic process.
The world is going through a transition where the era of ideologies and political systems are becoming redundant. In the next two decades, the economic leadership is poised to play a far more important role in the world than the political and the military leadership. Hence, we are presented with a great opportunity for large-scale change. So when economics are beginning to play such a big role, and the economic engine is driving the very fundamentals of the world, it is very important that the leaders who handle the economic process rise above ethnic, religious and national identities as the economic process can no longer be contained within any kind of identity or boundary.
In the last decade, I have been a speaker at various economic and business forums including the World Economic Forum at Davos. In the initial phase, the question was always, “What is a mystic’s role in a business meeting?” This is a serious flaw — the way we are conducting life on this planet. We have divided the world into first world, second world, third world, religious world, corporate world, etc. Every activity that we do is essentially aimed towards the wellbeing of all life, but in the process of conducting this activity, we start working against each other. I had to take pains to explain during these various forums that, irrespective of what the nature of their immediate business may be, in reality there is only one business — the business of human wellbeing. That’s everybody’s business and that is my business, too. Whatever one is manufacturing, whether one is making a safety pin or a computer or a spacecraft, all this is only to serve the interest of human wellbeing; it is just the scale and scope that is different. For one person, human wellbeing means one’s own wellbeing. For another person, it includes one’s family; for another, it includes one’s community, nation or race. For another, it includes everyone and everything on the planet.

So I am striving to include all those involved in driving the economic engine into a spiritual process as spirituality is fundamentally a process of inclusiveness. Over 80% of the world’s economy is controlled by less than 2,500 people. If even a 10% change happens in their hearts, the world will change. The world is hungry not because there is no food; there is more than enough food to feed the six to seven billion people on the planet. It is just that those who need it are not getting it because, one way or the other, those who have the power and the means have not cared enough to do something about it.
One basic aspect of the spiritual process is that it makes one into an all-inclusive human being. It is the exclusiveness of the rich that has rendered the world unjust and inhuman. The essential aspect of the spiritual process is to raise one beyond these physical and individual identifications and into a state of all-inclusive oneness. The spiritual process need not be taught as a philosophy or a belief system; what we refer to as spirituality is just a technology for inner wellbeing — it can be imparted as simple methods which will naturally lead to a more inclusive way of experiencing life.
What we call “Inclusive Economics” is empowering the whole of humanity to participate in a robust and all-inclusive economic process. For example, providing good health care and quality education for the underprivileged or disadvantaged populations is not charity but an investment; it creates quality human resources and expands markets, furthering the reach and scope of the economic engine. This does not mean going back to failed systems like communism or socialism, but administering and driving the economic engine in a gentler and compassionate way that will lead to including every human being on the planet into the economic process; leaving more than 50% of the population out of an active involvement in the economic process does not make good business sense. For this process to sustain itself, it is imperative that it be driven not by personal ambition, but by vision. It is extremely important that individuals in key leadership positions who shape the life and future of humanity are firmly established in an inner experience of inclusiveness. So this has become my life, my work and my endeavor — to develop methods to help people experience this inclusiveness.
When this sense of inclusiveness came into me, I suddenly realized that to be loving is not somebody’s teaching, to be compassionate is not an idea, to be in empathy is not some esoteric principle, this is the way a human being is made. If only he does not constipate his consciousness with limited identifications, with that which he is not. For the first time, we are capable of addressing every human problem on this planet — nourishment, health, education, ecology - you name it, we can address it. We have the necessary resources, capabilities and technology for the very first time, but whether we will do it or not simply depends on how inclusive our experience of life is. If you stand here and experience this planet as yourself, I don’t have to tell you, “Take care of it.” Every human being would do their best. In our lives, if we do not do what we cannot do, that is not a problem, but if we do not do what we can do, that is a disaster. And right now, what we can do compared to what we could do 100 years ago is so different, so incredibly different, but what’s missing is an all-inclusive consciousness, an all-inclusive experience of life. If we truly have to create solutions that are relevant for all, an experience of absolute inclusiveness has to happen to humanity, particularly for the leadership. And this is possible.

The Power to Create Your Life.

Everything we have created on this planet was essentially first created in the mind. All the work done by humans — both the wonderful things and the horrible things — first found expression in the mind, then became manifested in the outside world. In the yogic tradition, a well-established mind is referred to as a “Kalpavriksha” or a “wishing tree.”

If you organize your mind to a certain level, it in turn organizes your whole system; your body, emotions and energies get organized in that direction. If this happens, you are a Kalpavriksha yourself. Anything that you wish will happen.

Once we are empowered with a potential like this, it is very important that our physical action, emotional action, mental action and energy action are controlled and properly directed. If they are not, we become destructive, self-destructive.

Right now, that is our problem. Technology, which was supposed to make our lives easy and beautiful, has become the source of our problems; we are destroying the very basis of our life, which is the planet. So, what should have been a boon, we are making a curse out of it.

For life to happen the way you wish it should happen depends on a variety of things:

• How you think and with how much focus.
• How much stability is in your thought.
• How much reverberance is present in the thought process.

This determines whether your thought becomes a reality or whether it is just a wimpy thought.

But then the question arises within a human being, “Is what I wish even possible?” This question is destroying humanity. What is possible and not possible are not one’s business, it is nature’s business. Your business is just to strive for what you want. Nature will decide whether it is possible or not.

Today, modern science is proving that the whole existence is just a reverberation of energy. It is a vibration. Similarly, your thought is a vibration. If you generate a powerful thought and let it out, it will always manifest itself.

To create what you really care for, what you want must be well-manifested in your mind. This is the first and foremost thing. Once you can maintain a steady stream of thought without changing direction, it will definitely manifest as a reality in your life.

So either you make yourself into a Kalpavriksha or you make yourself into one big mess, which is happening all over the world. Hence, what you really want must be clear. If you do not know what you want, the question of creating it doesn’t arise.

If you look at it, what every human being wants is to live peacefully and joyfully. And in terms of relationships, human beings want to be loving and affectionate. Or in other words, all that human beings are seeking is pleasantness within themselves, or pleasantness around them.

So once your mind gets organized, your emotions will get organized — the way you think is the way you feel. Once your thought and emotions are organized, your energies become organized in the same direction. Once your thought, emotion and energies are organized, your very body will get organized. Once these four are organized in one direction, your ability to create and manifest what you want is phenomenal.

The Magic of Life

There are two aspects to knowing life: pragna or samadhi. Pragna is the path of awareness. Samadhi is the path of abandon. If you walk through the rain with utmost awareness, you will know rain in a certain way. But if you walk through the rain with absolute abandon, you will know rain another way. If you walk through the rain in total abandon, you will know the whole of it, but you will miss the point of it because you don’t care a damn what the point of rain is.
What is the point of this life” is only for someone who does not have the necessary abandon to walk through this life, enjoying everything that is happening to him. He is trying to decipher the meaning of life because the magic of life has not hit him. With awareness, you will know the meaning of life. With abandon, you will know the magic of life. Do these two things meet somewhere? Yes. If you go into any one of them absolutely, you will realize they are same. They are two doors to the same room, but they are two completely different kinds of doors. Right now, it is like, “If I am focused on something, I miss everything else. If I try to pay attention to everything else, I am not able to be focused on anything.” Better to be focused on something. At least one thing will happen. Otherwise, nothing will be happen — life will pass off like a dream.

If you look back meticulously at what happened yesterday — I got up in the morning, this happened, that happened — you will see that with 99.9999 percent of your experiences, we can easily confuse you whether it was real or it was a dream. It just takes a little bit of talking, because nothing profound has happened; only the five senses are recording. Recording of events is happening, but no experience is happening.

Are you a human being or are you a historian? Are you interested in recording life or experiencing and knowing life? If you want to know life, if you give yourself absolutely to at least one thing, you will know something of life. Otherwise you will only record life. This is why wherever you go today, even if you come to a sathsang, you will see someone pull out their camera. They want to record everything because the only way they can prove to themselves after a few years that they actually went to this place is by looking at the picture, nothing else is left. If you are blown away by an experience, do you want to take a picture?

I happened to be in Turkey. I was in a hot air balloon. There was another hot air balloon which was full of tourists and every one of them had a camera. One man was leaning out of the basket to take pictures of the balloon and he just fell from 50 feet. I thought, “Okay, this experience he need not photograph.” He broke his collarbone and one of his ankles. I am sure he did not need a picture; he will always remember the experience. I am saying just looking out, seeing something could be as big an experience as breaking a bone. But because nothing is an experience, you want to record everything.

Whether you do it with your camera or your eyes, this is what most people are doing — recording life. They are not experiencing life. At least if you are involved with one thing, there is a possibility that you will experience something, otherwise only recording is happening. The accumulated memory of recording is what we are referring to as karma. That means you will become a creature of the past. All these recordings will keep replaying every moment of your life, telling you an old story which doesn’t matter anyway.

Look back and see 10 days ago, what happened from the moment you got up till you went to bed, look at it and see. It is as good as somebody else’s story, isn’t it? Here and there, there may be moments of experience, the rest is all just a recorded story. Yoga means to transform this life into a living profound experience, not a mere recording.

Don’t Gauge Your Worth by Your Salary

How much you are worth need not be seen in terms of how much you are paid. How much you are worth should be assessed in terms of what responsibilities are given to you. The privilege is not the money that you receive; the privilege is that you have been allowed to create something. Money is a means for our survival, yes, and to that extent it is necessary. However, you must always assess yourself in terms of whatever you are being asked to do. What is the level of responsibility that is being offered to you? What is the opportunity for you to create something truly worthwhile, both for yourself and for everybody around you? Any work that you do in the world is truly worthwhile for you only if you are able to touch people’s lives deeply.

For example, if you were to make a film, would you want to make a film nobody would want to watch? Or write a book that nobody would want to read? Or build a house that nobody would want to live in? You would not want to produce something nobody wants to use. So in some way, you are longing to touch people’s lives. If you closely observe your life, you will see that one thing of importance to you is that the activity you perform should touch people’s lives.

Many people are trying to divide their life into work and family — where work is something that you do just for money and family is something you do to touch people’s lives. But no matter how much money you earn, if you find your husband, wife or children are not at all touched by what you do, it would suddenly seem meaningless to have a family. Somewhere in your life, you want people to be touched by what you do. This aspect need not remain or restrict itself to family alone; it could extend itself into every area of life. Whatever you do should touch people’s lives — that is all that really matters.

How deeply you touch people’s lives depends on how involved you are in what you do. If your involvement is there, naturally the way you work will be very different, and according to your capabilities, you will be paid. Sometimes you will have to bargain a little or ask for a raise, perhaps your boss has forgotten that you need one. But generally, if people realize the value of what you are to that particular business or company, they will pay accordingly.

If you grow in what you are doing, some day, when it is necessary, you could shift from one position to the next, and your money could just multiply a 100 times over. For example, let us say you are heading a corporation and for whatever reason you are not paid much, but you have been given full responsibility to run the whole operation. If you are performing well and the whole world is watching, tomorrow anybody will be willing to grab you for any amount. So your value need not always be gauged in terms of money.

We have established corporations so that what we cannot do individually, we can achieve collectively. We could have all operated as individual entrepreneurs — that is how we operated historically, where everybody was a manufacturer and trader of some commodity. But when we are willing to put the will of thousands of people together in one direction — that is a corporation wanting to achieve something big.

Where are you are placed in this corporation of people looking to move in one direction? What is the level of responsibility and trust that has been placed in you? That is your real worth. How much you derive from it in terms of money is not everything. Yes, it is important but it is not everything. You must always gauge your worth in terms of the level of responsibility people are willing to give you, and whether what you are creating is truly worthwhile for yourself and for others.

The danger of individualism in business

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev highlights the danger of individualism in business

In our country, we largely depend on doing the right things using individual values, morals and ethics, which is dangerous

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Companies, chief executive officers (CEOs), wannabe-CEOs, just about everyone is in search of a purpose. Every year,Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Foundation conducts a leadership programme for entrepreneurs and CEOs at its ashram in Coimbatore. Conceptualized and conducted by him, and facilitated by people like Dr Ram Charan, an acclaimed CEO coach to Fortune 500 companies, the residential programme hosts entrepreneurs and CXOs in search of meaning. They learn from other CEOs and leaders who serve as mentors or share their stories. Over the years, the programme and Vasudev himself have become destination points for CXOs looking for meaning. This interviewer attended one of Isha Foundation’s first such programmes two years ago and was impressed. One, the programme offered deep insights into the nature of the self and business. Two, it combined wisdom and pragmatism of the kind I hadn’t encountered at a B-school. Ahead of the next such programme, which will be held between 27 and 30 November (details at ishafoundation.org), this writer interviewed Vasudev. Apart from Vasudev and Charan, TataSons’ chairman emeritus Ratan Tata and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd’s co-chairman and CEO G.V. Prasad are key “resource leaders” for the programme. Edited excerpts:

As an entrepreneur, how should you measure your life? What is the value you bring to the table as an entrepreneur?

Some entrepreneurs take to entrepreneurship as a mission and others because nobody is willing to employ them—not necessarily because of incompetence, but because they are not structured to fit in as an employee. Employment is a way of boxing somebody into something to produce results. There may be people who cannot be boxed or are not shaped to fit a box. They choose self-employment. They may become big employers depending on their levels of success.

Eventually what begins as an economic activity becomes a passion. If you are employed in a company, you may work 8-10 hours. If you are self-employed though, you may have to put in 18-20 hours. You might as well learn to deploy this time into your growth and well-being.

There is a certain heady feeling about being an entrepreneur. That you are successful by your own means gives a man a sense of pride. But I am not interested in that. It is the sense of involvement that comes with being an entrepreneur that is transformative.

Are you suggesting here it is difficult for somebody who is not an entrepreneur to get the same heady feeling of being involved?

I am not suggesting that. You can be a volunteer at the Isha Yoga Center. Volunteers have nothing to gain. But they are involved. To be a volunteer means to be willing. There is nobody to whip you to run at full speed. You go at full speed because you said a big “Yes” to life.

I am not saying an employee cannot feel that way either. But unfortunately many don’t because there is no sense of belonging. This is one thing I am always trying to instil in people. If you want to do something, do it. But don’t shift your focus every other day. If you put your heart and soul into what you are doing, that is a great thing to do. Is it the best thing to do? No. But it is a great thing to do.

Why do you say it is not the best thing to do?

If I say there is a best thing, then what I do is better than what you’re doing. That is not a good way to approach life. What I am doing is a great thing to do in my experience. It can become in your experience as well if you give yourself totally to what you are doing. Entrepreneurs do that because of the atmosphere they live in.

In the past, you’ve spoken of compromises an entrepreneur has to make. We all agree it is not easy to be idealistic. But being idealistic may not be wise either. How do you be pragmatic, do the right thing and still do good business?

All of these are unnecessary. In our country, we largely depend on doing the right things using individual values, morals and ethics. That is dangerous because all of these can be bent and reshaped to fit your situation.

This is because the laws that govern business in our country are not clear. People know that within the boundaries of law, they can do many wrong things and then fix them with their own morals and ethics. This is not a reliable way of doing business. My values are for my own aesthetic, not for business.

Law should govern business. It is like playing football. You can kick the ball any which way you want to. But you can’t touch it with your hands.

Because laws have not been framed properly, people never thought of a nation as an entrepreneurial venture. We thought by agitating we can build a nation. Only now we are figuring out that if we are to flourish, we need business and need proper legislation. If laws are enforceable, I don’t have to worry whether you are good or bad. That’s not my business. There should be no question of personal reliability. The laws must be clear that if somebody breaks them, they must pay for it. Then all this talk of values will go away.

What kind of people ought to be framing these laws?

People with business sense! Not idealistic people. You can’t do business with that. Who can conduct any business in India without paying somebody something? Even a beggar pays somebody to squat at a prime location. In a temple, people bribe the priest to get a ringside view.

Is it morally imperative for business to grow? Growth can benefit the most number of people. But growth and greed are seen as partners.

When you grow, it is growth. When somebody else grows, it is greed. It’s time we acknowledge that when somebody else grows, that is also growth. There is no room for greed.

Because our values are driven by economics, we think of growth in economic terms. If you thought of growth as human consciousness, human capability and economic growth, then growth wouldn’t be a problem. Right now, growth is unipolar. This is the first generation where conversations around dinner and tea are about the economy. Nobody ever did that 25 years ago, except the Americans.

Growth has to be multi-dimensional. Then greed is good. I want all spiritual seekers as greedy as possible, as lustful if you ask me. I use the word lust because people don’t understand the word “desire” strongly enough. That is why we are trying to bring spiritual processes into business. If they can see something valuable in it, then they will pursue it as well.

In family-managed businesses (FMBs), is there a breakdown of trust between generations? The younger generation wants a Google kind of culture, while the patriarchs see it as an infringement. How can this chasm be crossed?

I won’t bring trust into this. The younger generation inherited a business that got successful by using certain methods. The patriarchs trust that method because it produced results. As you get older, you don’t want new things. This is because there is a certain depletion of the mind and a lack of integrity in the body.

The younger generation is usually trying to imitate someone else’s success. You said “of the Google kind”, but at Google, fun is on the surface. Else it is dead serious. For instance, Chade-Meng Tan there is formally designated as the Jolly Good Fellow of Google. He is a jolly guy who talks to you about nothing around work. But this is to soften you up before you go in for a meeting.

Being cool is fashionable. Whatever is fashionable in America becomes fashionable everywhere. But in America the “Thank God it’s Friday” culture pervades. That means nobody likes the five days they work. The culture of “weekend is life and the rest of the week is torture” has gone deep into the American psyche. This culture is growing in cities in India.

So if the younger generation tries something for the sake of it, it can be disastrous. But if they really have a better way of doing things, they must be allowed to do it. They will either transform their parents, or themselves or perhaps just quit their inheritance and find some ways to do things that work for them.

If there were a tool kit that you could offer the older generation at FMBs, what would it be?

There are no formulas to success. What has worked in one situation will not work in another. As an entrepreneur, you must show interest not just in your business, but everything. You pay attention indiscriminately to everything and provide the same level of attention to everything you see. It is very important if you want to craft something of significance.

If you have to become a successful entrepreneur, this is something you have to cultivate. Only then are you an unprejudiced being. If you have different levels of attention to what is yours and what is not yours, you’re gone. Yes, there are some you have to do more with and some you have to do less with. But in terms of attention, there should be no discrimination. That is when your life will be a continuous process of growth.

When FMBs come to you for advice, what strikes you the most?

Don’t forget, entrepreneurship is an economic activity. It need not be raised to Heaven. It must be conducted on Earth to the extent it is necessary for you and me. That is why I say no entrepreneur should become unipolar.

I have met enough people from the older generation who have worked hard to get to where they are. So those who created have a different sense of everything from those who landed into comfort. Therefore, it is very important that the older generation seeks sensible cooperation from the younger generation.

There is always the risk they may fail. But the risk that you could have failed also existed when you started. It’s just that you succeeded. But if you don’t create a challenge, they will not understand what you are talking about. Only then, they will become entrepreneurs. Else, they will become landlords. They need to be on their toes, not on their backsides.

Is there a uniquely Indian way of doing things for FMBs that we have not looked at?

How business transitions in India is very different. In the West, it transitions from the first generation to professionals. In India, it generally moves to the second generation whether they are fit for it or not. They don’t know how to professionalize because they don’t trust anybody other than their blood. So the purity of pedigree creates certain problems. This is a very small resource you are looking at. If you have two or three children, you are trying to find a leader within the three instead of looking at 500 and picking up the best.

In the past, Indian families used to groom them in-house, at least the boys, when they were as young as 7-8 years old. They’d start writing accounts and observe everything, but never get to touch the money until they turned 18. By then, they understood the ins and outs of business. These are not processes that can be written down in a book because every business is run secretively in India. It is changing now. It is being corporatized.

How does an individual know what kind of a leadership style to adopt in any given situation?

There is no such thing as leadership style. If you are a true leader, you don’t think you are a leader. People think you are one. You just do what you have to do. The style of functioning today is according to the reality of today. If today people are sensitive, you operate accordingly. Tomorrow if you are dealing with a bunch of donkeys, you can’t operate in the same way. But whatever you do, do it in style.

Where do ideas like philanthropy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) stand in your scheme of things?

What CSR means is that the government expects a business to do what it is failing at. Non-governmental organizations would not exist if the government works at its best. If we are playing a game, the rules should stay in place. It can’t change in the middle of the game.

You said 30% income tax. If I am paying that, leave me alone. Don’t tell me I must start a school, a hospital, etc. Don’t try to make me feel guilty about my success. That is not good for a market economy.

How do you develop a strategy to learn from others on the one hand and go with your gut on the other?

The gut is not the most important part of your body. It’s full of shit. It’s a fact. This feeling from your gut comes because when faced with indecisiveness, fear accompanies. When fear comes, it begins to function in your gut because fear and bowel movement are connected. That’s why you say “shit scared”. So when indecisiveness, trepidation and a little bit of fear enter you, there will be movement in your belly. Don’t think it is an intelligent movement. But at the same time when fear comes, you perceive danger. That’s when you become alert. When danger is there, people experience more alertness than they ever know in their whole life. Because of that you may see better than what you may otherwise. So that is how this gut thing has come.

But I would much rather use my brain. When you use your brain, there is a certain level of intelligence that tries to work through a situation and there is information from others.

After weighing these inputs, you decide whether to use your intelligence or information. Choosing one over the other in every situation is foolish. To what extent is your intelligence better than the information you have on hand is a judgment you arrive at. When I am driving in a strange country, I just listen to the lady’s voice on the global positioning system. I don’t use my intelligence. So that’s a judgment you make.

Charles Assisi is a senior journalist at work on his first entrepreneurial venture that will debut this year. He maintains a personal website on www.audaciter.net andtweets on @c_asssisi

Mint is a media partner for the Isha Foundation ’s leadership programme.