Talk at IIT Club Chennai November 2011

Dear Friends I take this opportunity to thank the organizing committee of the IIT Madras Alumni Association, and the IIMB alumni association to have given me this platform to come and talk to you about Plunnge my first book. It has been a wonderful experience since I took the Plunnge from being a senior business development manager at Qualcomm to now being a nobody, a house husband, a teacher, a father and a friend to my near and dear ones. I am thoroughly enjoying it and I am looking forward to more fun along the way. The book has morphed into a mini movement now where I see almost everyone in the age group of 20 to 45 keen to do what they want to do but cannot for whatever reasons some of them could be a simple fear of the unknown, to lack of opportunities or to the most important and the most misunderstood one what do I want do to and how do I make sure, I can survive on that.

This topic is also a very tricky one to tread. It dives into philosophy, then comes out into the logical sphere of making career decisions, then gets marred by trends around us and is always shadowed by a context which can vary horrendously with time. So I dont want to even attempt treading on it and give you gyan that even I dont understand. I am still a traveler on this journey and am beginning to understand new concepts everyday by meeting interesting people like you. So I thought I will convey my message in few simple stories and examples of those who took the Plunnge and are now happy. In these few stories, I will also attempt to demystify some common myths about making choices that impact our life and career.

Myth 1 We retire at 60
This word retirement actually never existed before 1880 Germany being the first country to introduce this system where workers were given retirement benefits when they become old. But nowadays, the word more or less means not to go to work forever. In other words, it also means old

Copyright Rakesh Godhwani 2011 www.plunnge.com

Talk at IIT Club Chennai November 2011

age or a situation where one has made enough to be able to live on his/her savings and not depend on any job. And majority of the people I meet have a very standard dream retire at 45. I dont know where that comes from. Maybe its fashionable to say that I am retired. But I dread saying that. I would die of depression if I dont work. For me, work is worship. Its who I am. I can maybe wake up and do nothing for a day or two. But after that, I need my work steroids and healthy dosage of social interaction to survive. So I argue that we can never retire. And there is no such law that one must retire at 60. Let me share with you an example of how one man broke that myth and created a massive impact after 60 years of age. Born in 1896 in Calcutta, Shri Prabhupada served his family and ran a typical business for many years. At the age of 54, he left his family to follow his dreams that of spreading teachings of Krishna. He started writing and translated Bhagwad Gita the message of Krishna, in English and took it international. At the age of 69, he boarded a cargo ship bound to USA and After 35 days of suffering in the sea, having survived 2 fatal heart attacks, he reached New York. And in about a year, he founded ISKCON. Over the next 12 years, He wrote 60 books, thousands of commentaries on Indian scriptures that got them translated in 50 languages. He personally wrote letters to his 10,000 plus disciples, circled the globe and visited all countries to spread the message of Krishna Consciousness and now continues the work through 100 plus centers of ISKCON worldwide. One humble feat of this juggernaut is that they feed 1.36million children EVERYDAY in their Akshay Patra scheme. And if you thought that you will work till 58 and retire simply because thats how things are, you are so wrong. Heres a man, who at the age of 69 began his true calling and the impact of his work is still felt all over the world.

Myth 2 Career is like a 100 meter dash.

It is not a very uncommon thinking that Life and Career are like a 100 meter dash especially in the competitive world we see today. In this dash, we put in all our energies to jump start, sprint across the 100 meter line fastest and the main focus is to beat others or be ahead of others. We all feel that we have to work hard 18 hours a day, get promotions, make money, secure future and then life is rosy because we have beaten everyone else or we have made enough in the early part of our lives. And nowadays, I see one more trend people leaving jobs, joining new companies and sprinting 100 meters there as well (to impress the new company and get reach higher) So in just about 10 years, one can have upto 6 to 10 sprints. Whenever I see someone in this mode, and talk to them, I enjoy hearing the part where they justify that they are doing this to secure their future and then really have a blast. Well, I think with the way you are ignoring your health in these sprints, I doubt you will have any health left when you have a massive security. The second way of looking at life and career is like that of a marathon. In a marathon, the runner conserves energy because he/she knows that he/she has to go a looong looong way. The main focus is to enjoy the run, rather than be ahead of others. When you tune your mind that I have at least 45-65 years of career ahead of me, and I have to enjoy it, you then look at life careers very differently. One then tends to slow down, balance priorities of health, family and career and gets a much richer experience. I call this the 3 Freedom model which is described in my book as well.

Copyright Rakesh Godhwani 2011 www.plunnge.com

Talk at IIT Club Chennai November 2011

A dear friend of mine, who just purchased his 5th house in Bangalore and got promoted, was recently diagnosed with hypertension. He is 38. His family has a history of diabetes and after seeing me biking everyday and loosing weight, bought a bike for himself. We both go biking sometimes and I asked him one day, why are you so stressed out? And he explained that the EMIs of all his properties, his sons education, increasing medical bills of the family etc are giving him tension. And he is working hard to make sure he gets the promotions to get the salary needed to cover all this. What use are all the houses and promotions when he cant even enjoy them? Despite running for what he wants, he still will lose it all. I think there is no harm in buying properties. Its a very personal thinking. But all he needs to do is slow down and space out his investments. That way, he will conserve his health and enjoy the marathon. And another friend of mine is 68, single, has never invested in any house, lives life as it comes, thoroughly enjoys his work as a wealth manager for his clients, plays tennis every afternoon, drinks couple pegs of Signature every night, followed by a meal of greasy Gobi Manchurian and butter chicken. He is fitter than I am. I read somewhere Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. They are Work, Family, Health and Spirit and youre keeping all of these in the air.You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four Balls Family, Health, Friends and Spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same

Myth 3 I love cooking. Let me take a plunnge and start a restaurant

Let me make sure you understand the difference between Passion and Hobby. Because if you dont, you will end up taking your hobby as your passion and make the plunnge only to realize that you really dont like it anymore. Hobby is like a past time. I love to cook but I know its not my passion. Its my stress buster. I also love to watch movies but I cant make them or have a passion to write on them. Passion is a very strong emotion or feeling about something. For me, my passion is teaching and coaching. I can do it morning noon or night. Its not my past time. To explain this concept I also want you to read about this book called Flow.

Copyright Rakesh Godhwani 2011 www.plunnge.com

Talk at IIT Club Chennai November 2011

High

Challenge level

Low Low Skill level High

What this means is that if you are skilled at doing something and are challenged at doing it, that sweet spot of maximum level is called Flow. It explains why a painter will continue to paint, or a runner will continue to run, and so on. It can also be applied to anyone a software engineer etc. Remember 3 Idiots? This is exactly what that movie also mentioned that make the Flow your job.

One of my friends did not understand this at all. He had a hobby of helping children on weekends on math. And he thought, this was his passion. And he plunnged. In few months, he realized that he is not enjoying it at all and came back to the company he worked for earlier. Now he is so scared, that he will never take a plunnge ever. I pray he does!

Myth 4 to be successful, the benchmark is to only become like Steve Jobs or Mukesh Ambani else, lets just stay where we are.
The last myth I want to talk about is this feeling that if there is one guy who breaks all rules and is a poster boy of success, its Steve Jobs. And nobody else exists at all. Please dont get me wrong. I am big fan of his work. I have ardently followed him and used his example in almost all my classes. But I see a massive problem of following the glorified amongst us. Unless the media writes about us or talks good/bad about us, we dont feel that we have arrived. And it changes with time. Sometimes its MS Dhoni if India wins a match, sometimes its Barack Obama. Or even Rakhi Sawant. We just enjoy relating to the celebrities and idolize them. Its like Amitabh Bacchans famous dialogue in Sharaabi Muuchen

Copyright Rakesh Godhwani 2011 www.plunnge.com

Talk at IIT Club Chennai November 2011

ho to Natthulaalji jaisi ho, varna na ho (If one should have a moustache, it should be like Natthulaalji, or else dont) Indirectly, the point I am trying to make is that for us success is defined as something what others make us feel. NOT what we feel within us. This drive within us to be successful, as benchmarked by what we want, is missing. Social recognition is a very big reward for us. And unless we all become examples of this change that for our generation and the future, success is defined by what we want and not what others want, I see a crisis in front of all of us. We dont celebrate ourselves. We dont rejoice our own self. And my book Plunnge was my way of celebrating 15 successes including my own. I think it is no mean feat to take the road less followed, not care of what others think, live life according to ones choices, spread joy and most important be happy. Pratap, the engineering manager at Infosys is now farming, Simran, the HR specialist now is a professional Kathak dancer and runs a dance school for kids, Aniruddha the client relations expert for banking software runs an Italian restaurant, Srikanth is a part time Quizmaster besides selling technical products, Vasu left a 20 year long unhappy marriage behind to become a Yoga instructor, Rahul the market research head at Motorola now runs marathons, Shankar the treasurer of Wipro now researches history and writes on financial topics, Samanvitha the Cisco employee is now exploring Mt Sinai and wrote on Facebook that the 11th commandment is love yourself, Michael the salesman from China Unicom took up a full time MBA and invests in stocks, Manasi the banker. From Stan Chart sings, Yash the interior designer relocated to Canada to learn more on design and see the world, Fareed the graphics expert is now a fitness instructor, Guhesh S last corporate job was CEO and he now is a certified Scuba Diving instructor, Archana left a cushy well-paid job in Microsoft and chose to be an artist, Shenoy the geek is now a financial advisor and Guru Prasad has been travelling all around the world for the last three years. They all reinvent themselves every day, enjoy what they do, earn money and are able to pay their bills and most importantly are happy. In fact, many of them are earning more money than what they would have in their boring jobs.

In the end, I would like to appeal to each and every one of you in this room you have one life to live. I see no point in all of you sleeping every night with the thought that I dont know what I achieved today or I am not happy in what I am doing. Seriously, its a criminal waste of your life. So read my book and see if it helps you. If you have a dream that you really want to follow, dont hesitate. I can tell you one thing for sure you will never know unless you try it. More details are on www.plunnge.com or www.facebook.com/plunnge . I am reachable at [email protected]

Thank you IIT Alumni Club and the IIT Madras Alumni Association for hosting me. I will now take questions.

Copyright Rakesh Godhwani 2011 www.plunnge.com