Virender Kapoor [Kapoor - Excellence

EXCELLENCE

Virender Kapoor is a thinker, an educationist and an inspirational guru. An alumnus of IIT Bombay and the former director of a prestigious management institute under the Symbiosis umbrella, he is currently the founder-director, president and chief mentor of Management Institute of Leadership and Excellence (MILE), Pune. His books on emotional intelligence, leadership and self-help have been translated into several regional and foreign languages. To know more about him, log on to www.virenderkapoor.com or mail him at virenderkapoor21@yahoo.com

Other books in the series:

Speaking: The Modi Way

Leadership: The Gandhi Way

Innovation: The Einstein Way

Published by

Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2017

7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj

New Delhi 110002

Copyright Virender Kapoor 2017

The views and opinions expressed in this book are the authors own and the facts are as reported by her which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-81-291-XXXX-X

First impression 2017

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The moral right of the author has been asserted.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publishers prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Style is a reflection of your attitude and your personality.

Shawn Ashmore

Writing a book on Amitabh Bachchan has been extremely difficult. At the same time, it has also been very easy. It was a challenge because a lot has already been written about this man who has been in the limelight for the past four decades. Is there anything left to be told that a reader might be interested inor bettermay be able to learn something from? On the other hand, it was easy because there is so much to learn from this individual that one can easily create impactful content for the audience. Each of his interviews with the media are words that impart wisdomwith nuggets of inspiration for each one of us.

His performances in the movies are awe-inspiring and each episode of Kaun Banega Crorepati left a lasting impression on millions of people across the world. I have often asked my students one question, Given a choice, would you be an Ambani or an Amitabh? One has a lot of money but little fame, while the other has immense fame but little money. Amitabh is the usual response. If you ask me, I would also vote for Amitabh.

Does this adulation only exist because of his popularity, fan following, acting and panache or is there something more to it? Certainly, there is a lot more than just that. Along with great acting, there are multiple facets of his personality that are hard to miss. After all, there is always so much to learn from people who have gone through different phases of lifethe good, the bad and the ugly. In his case, however, the situations have been the best, the worst and the most horrid. It requires a lot of determination, willpower and patience to manage the ups and downs of an unpredictable film career, combined with health issues and a failed business venture. Handling challenging roles and delivering your 100 per cent to satisfy people via a medium that opens you to constant scrutiny and keeps you under a microscope all the timeframe by frameis not a small achievement. Though film-making is teamwork, film actors are lone rangers who need to stand on their own two feet to either perform or perish. It is a known fact that audiences are unforgiving. They can send you fan mails and hate mails at the same frenzied pace. It is, therefore, important to take both in ones stride. And lets admit it, Amitabh Bachchan does have big strides!

For me, he is the perfect example of demonstrative excellence. It is not difficult to find almost every quality one requires to excel in Amitabh Bachchan and that is the best thing to learn from this enigmatic personality. It also happens to be the best thing to write about him.

I found what to write aboutso obvious, so true and yet not explored and explained in the correct perspective. You feel the suns energy all the time, yet you require a magnifying glass to channelize it and light a fire. This megastar has the suns energy. This is what I feel was required to be written about; this is what was missing.

When you talk about IQIntelligence Quotientyou think of Albert Einstein. But when you talk of Emotional Quotient and human excellence, which role model do you think of to illustrate the point? Who would be better than Big B for this role? In the Indian cinema, I cant think of anyone else. So, lets cast him right away.

INTRODUCTION

Excellence, the Power Within

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternativeschoice, not chance, determines your destiny.

Aristotle

Traditionally, the analysts looked at human competence through a very small window. IQ was the de facto measure of human excellence for a very long time, almost throughout the last century. It was based on mathematical deduction, logical reasoning and linguistic prowess, and therefore, the tests were also devised accordingly.

The reason for this bias towards logical and scientific reasoning was not ill-founded. The last century was marked by scientific discoveries and inventions based on physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology. Those were the days of steam engines, cars, discovery of penicillin, medical research, aircraft, quantum mechanics, rockets and telephony as well as electricity. Our development and progress depended on these sciences. Even war supremacy during the two world wars was determined by more effective weaponry conceived first in laboratories and later manufactured in more efficient factories. That, of course, is true even today.

Scientific prowess in those days, therefore, was very sought after. If you did not excel in the sciences or math, you were deemed not good enough. As a result, the brightest students opted for science, the not-so-bright went for economics and commerce, while the rest had to be content with taking up arts as their academic stream.

Importance of the Latent Human Abilities for Success

Gradually, the new world order saw the emergence of a service sector and developed nations moved towards softer skills required in these areas. Scientists and analysts started realizing the potential of other human skills which had existed before but had never been appreciated. This realization dawned upon the scientific community almost at the end of the last century.

Emotional Intelligence became the new measure for human excellence. These seemingly intangible skills began appearing as some of the most important human assets. Driven and defined by self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management, Emotional Intelligence emerged as a new tool to predict the success of an individual. Almost at the same time, the multiple intelligence theorya still broader viewwas put forth by Howard Gardner (American Developmental Scientist at Harvard) who studied human competence across a larger spectrum with seven intelligences in place. These seven intelligences are: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial (including dance and acting), kinesthetic, interpersonal-personal and intrapersonalthe last two are covered by Emotional Intelligence.