Stay hungry Stay foolish

I am on the verge of completing this book but the zeal in me propelled me to write a summary of this book before completing it. Truly speaking while I was on the 17^th story I thought that there can’t be any summary of this book except that “This book is about Entrepreneurs which would definitely inspire everyone irrespective of whatever background they have”.

            But, now standing at 23^rd story I realized that entrepreneurship is far greater and far enriching experience than what I can think of. It’s like reaching the self Actualization phase of Maslow’s need Hierarchy as there is nothing above it.

            This book tells a story about 25 students of IIM-A who didn’t chose a normal path but treaded their own destiny. Most of these IIM grads belonged to a middle class family. The one thing I noticed in all the 23 stories I have read that whether entrepreneur is successful or not, whether he is having happy days or bad days, But he has got the satisfaction of ownership and leaving a legacy after him. He knows that people will remember him by the name of his company rather than some former employee of ‘xyz’ company.

            All of these people were those who were well placed in good MNC’s drawing High salaries but the instinct of Entrepreneurship was their real call which they couldn’t stop.

I wanted to highlight some lessons from this book which I really find meaningful:-

1.      Definitely Entrepreneurship requires lot of hardship ,taking tough decisions and always keeping your life on the brink but if you really compare this with today’s job you would find that the challenges in both the sectors are equal.

2.      Think how would you like to be remembered and what give you more satisfaction : would you like to be remembered as a loyal employee of ‘xyz’ company or a employer of ‘abc’ number of employees and CEO of ‘abc’.

3.      Follow the Rule of 3+ :- It basically states that for the first three years every business faces the difficulties and more or so you would also face them but if you can retain yourself during this period then you would definitely create a demand for yourself.

4.      There is no one sure shot formula of success , all these entrepreneurs at some stage or the other have faced the failures but the real issue is :- how hard you hit back the failures and learn from it.

5.      Money is not the end in itself (Anu Aga ,Ex chairperson ,thermax once said) “Profits are important but not the only thing…without breathing, you and I can’t live, but if you ask me what is the purpose of my life and if I say breathing, it is such a narrow way to define it!”

6.      And the last point I understand is Entrepreneurship is not a lesson which some can teach you ,it’s a life which you have to live yourself and everyone of the entrepreneur you will meet would have a different definition of it.

Rashmi Bansal ,has tried very best to compile the 25 most compelling stories so that every reader do find one for himself/herself .This novel do has it’s own set of Controversies like using hindi jargon in between the passage and writing about the people on the basis of very short interview of 1-2 hrs and stating the facts without doing prior research.

But in the end, I can just say that it’s a wonderful book which every student should read who is currently looking for a job may be you yourself don’t know the real thing for yourself. It definitely have the punch to encourage you and to give you a sense of connection with entrepreneurship which most of the other novels I read won’t be able to give you.