Think Big
One can be as big as he can think.
Opening Case Study:
A Truly Big Thinker: Dhiru Bhai Ambani
Born on December 28, 1932, Dhiru Bhai Ambani built India’s largest private sector company through his attitude of thinking big. He created an equity cult in the Indian capital market. Reliance is the first Indian company to feature in Forbes 500 list. Dhirubhai Ambani was the most enterprising Indian entrepreneur who believed in the power of big thinking. His life journey is reminiscent of the rags to riches story. He is remembered as the one who rewrote Indian corporate history and built a truly global corporate group. Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani was born at Chorwad, Gujarat, into a Modh family. His father was a school teacher. Dhirubhai Ambani started his entrepreneurial career by selling “bhajias” to pilgrims in Mount Girnar over the weekends. After doing his matriculation at the age of 16, Dhirubhai moved to Aden, Yemen. He worked there as a gas-station attendant, and as a clerk in an oil company. He returned to India in 1958 with Rs 50,000 and set up a textile trading company. Assisted by his two sons, Mukesh and Anil, Dhiru Bhai Ambani built India’s largest private sector company, Reliance India Limited, from a scratch. Over time his business has diversified into a core specialisation in petrochemicals with additional interests in telecommunications, information technology, energy, power, retail, textiles, infrastructure services, capital markets, and logistics. Dhirubhai Ambani is credited with shaping India’s equity culture, attracting millions of retail investors in a market till then dominated by financial institutions. Dhirubhai Ambani died on July 6, 2002, at Mumbai. His success story is a live example of entrepreneurial success through big thoughts.
Most people are scared of thinking big, they’re afraid to be successful, frightened to be rich. For most people, being a successful entrepreneur is a pleasant dream, but they’re contented with the dream – it’s pleasant and it makes them feel good. But really successful and wealthy entrepreneurs take it to the next altitude – they are devoted to being a rich entrepreneur, to being a successful professional, and they’re all set to keep on moving until the dream becomes reality.
Thinking big and starting small is the key to entrepreneurship. Even the longest and most difficult ventures have started with a thought in mind. Taking a shot into entrepreneurship is at the same time exciting and paralyzing. In case you’re like most entrepreneurs you’ve been living and breathing your business idea for what feels like an era, growing its potential in your head with each passing minute. And in spite of the eagerness and enthusiasm, when the time comes for action, you feel trapped. Where do you even begin? How do you accomplish building an empire, revolutionizing an industry, or creating a renowned business?
But thinking big comes
with a word of caution. Merely wishful thinking is not enough. It’s also
important to dismantle your own myths of the overnight success. Keeping an
eye on developing long term impetus, setting up good habits and carrying out small
steps can help build energy that will take you faster to your business goals. We’ve
been habituated to think small, simplify, not to be greedy, and by and large anticipate
less and demand less from life. We’ve been taught that we should be happy and grateful
about what we have and that there are many others less privileged than
ourselves.
There was an article somewhere that, as an experiment, someone put two advertisements
in a newspaper. They were for the same job, doing the same work with the same
hours, but one of them offered to pay a salary many times the other. Guess
what? About ten times more people applied for the lower paid job! People think
small. And that’s one of the reasons they fail.
You can achieve anything you desire – ask for it, opt for it, be dedicated to
it. Start thinking big. Demand MORE. Life is like that – by its very character
it grows, it changes, it seeks to be more than it is, it attains. That’s not an
awful thing. The awful thing is that we’ve been trained to be small and to agree
to less. The catastrophe of many people’s lives is that they think there’s not
enough to go round and they mustn’t take more than their fair share. But there
is adequate – enough money and sufficient success and enough of everything –
the universe never runs out, it just keeps on making more and more. What a misfortune
we don’t ask for it! The more you acquire, the more you can motivate others,
the more you can share, the more you can donate to everyone around you, and the
more you can enrich the world.
There is a quote in the book A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman, which summarizes all of this:
Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God; your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
What a wonderful quotation! You can achieve and be anything you want. Why limit yourself? There are no limits. That’s the power of thinking big!
What does it actually mean to think big? If you have something worthy in mind, a service to offer, an idea to expand, or even your own raw flair to use, then you owe it to yourself – and to others – to enhance its scope. Why opt for anything less than the full potential of what you can do with it?
But as a matter of fact, thinking big needs:
Vision: To think big, you need to see big.
Guts: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Thick skin: You must do if what you have in mind is at all worth doing. Be wary of others who express doubts about it along the way.
The truth is, when you have a strong enough vision, the guts takes care of itself. When you can see, hear, and feel your vision every moment, then you simply needtopursue it, however crazy it might seem to others.
The answer to how to achieve success for most entrepreneurs lies in equipping him to gear back and forth between thinking big and moving things ahead, which often necessitate taking small manageable steps.
If you believe you’ve been thinking too small, here are six guidelines to help you think bigger and make progress.
- We have Unlimited Potential
Every human being, regardless of race, sex or spiritual belief, has the incredible capacity to accomplish far beyond what they think their limits are. Great achievers have one thing in common – they tap into the potential of the mind. There is much truth to the old adage, “you can if you think you can.” You may have heard it said that we only use about ten percent of our brain power. You can unlock your inner potential only when you’re doing something that you really love to do. You can fulfill your innermost aspirations only when you’re doing something that interests you, something that holds your attention, something in which you can become completely absorbed.
And this is the key to unlocking the giant within. You must dream big dreams and do what you love to do. You must decide what’s right for you, what will make you happiest, before you decide what’s possible. You must set ideal standards and goals and results as your aim and then determine how to accomplish them.
- Find out what you are Passionate About
The more you are keenly interested in what you do, the better your chances of success. It really does not matter what you do — what counts is how much you enjoy what you are doing. Early on, attempt to identify the field of endeavor or occupation that gets you truly excited, that turns you on, that grabs and holds your attention. Is it cars, fashion, magazines, the restaurant business, teaching, construction, finance, electronics, computer games, engineering, medicine, scientific research, acting, music? Search for that one area that really kindles your passion and best uses your talents.
As Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple, said in his Commencement Address to the 2005 graduating class at Stanford University:
You’ve got to find what you love … Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
When you find your passion, become totally committed to mastering it
- Destroy all Boundaries
Self limiting beliefs and boundaries force the mind into thinking that you are inferior and less than worthy. The mind is a very powerful machine capable of anything, helpful or harmful. Trying again at anything is the first step towards destroying your self limiting beliefs and destroying all boundaries.. Winners are winners because they try and try again and again until they finally have success. A winner fails one more time than a loser, this is true in every story of success you will ever read. All of these winners have destroyed their self limiting beliefs.
- Look for Inspiration at role models
What entrepreneurs do you look forward for inspiration? It’s important to recognize businesses you want to be like when you grow up. But bear in mind, these entrepreneurial superheroes had beginnings too. Do some study to explore out what their early days were like. Gain knowledge from their lessons and take into consideration their milestones and decisions points. Seeing their journey aids in revealing the process and makes your business heroes human. It’s supportive to know that all business heroes had doubts and doubters of their own.
- Discuss with people who have already reached there
The best way to become successful is to be in the proximity of successful people on a daily basis. This may seem pretentious, but the reality is that successful people lead the kind of life that you want to be a part of, so it is essential that you too be surrounded in such a lifestyle. Successful people have a certain way of doing things and if you copy these habits, they will become ingrained in you and eventually become second nature. For example, talking a certain way or interacting with other people can be habits that lead to certain successes.
6. Visualize your Dream
Visualize all the steps required to complete your dreams. You can do this exercise with another person. Believe for a moment that you have reached the stage where your enterprise has “gone big.” Now let the other person interview and question you as to how exactly you arrived at where you are now.
Let the other person ask you “What was your very first step towards becoming a successful entrepreneur? How did you get the initial money? Who helped you? What are their names? What happened next? What is the turnover of your company? How many offices you have across the globe?”
For this exercise to be fruitful, be as convincing as possible in your answers. Pretty soon you’ll find it starts to feel amazingly real to you. The interviewer’s job is to ask as many realistic questions as possible. This links vision to practicality in a very powerful way.
As you reply, let the interviewer write down all the steps, put them in chronological order, and number them. He can also ask “difficult questions” like: “What was the hardest thing about all this? What have you had to sacrifice?” (Watching TV? Procrastinating? Sleeping till late?). But also: “What does it feel like now?” and: “What’s the best thing about having started your own enterprise? Describe your typical day now.”
Now close your eyes whilst the interviewer talks you slowly through each step that you have drawn up together. Strongly imagine completing all the steps that you had envisioned during the “visualized interrogation.” Once you have done this, it will become much more likely that you will begin to actualize the real steps towards creating your own enterprise.