Loving you so much Mahatria. My question is I’m a very strong doer. If I take up something, I know I will not leave it.  Whether it is some practices… spirituality… anywhere, but I can’t think on my own.

And when you’re an entrepreneur, you have to think and come up with things which others can’t.  I need guidance always. And I need somebody to keep telling me, ‘You do this!’. If I see and I get an idea, I’ll follow it. But to think I can’t do it. How do I develop this?

I know you’re an entrepreneur, otherwise, every organization here will recruit you. Because the crisis in all the organizations is, we don’t have doers. We have thinkers only – thinkeroo thinkers!

In fact, when I see some of the organizations, I feel it’s an organization full of King – No citizen. Nobody wants to do anything. Everybody wants to think. Everybody wants to think. So, in fact, it’s a great asset that you’re able to take something, you’re able to do it to the finishing line, it’s a great asset that is there.

So ideally delegate thinking to somebody else and continue… because execution is our challenge. In fact, ‘I don’t know’ is not the challenge of the world. ‘I don’t do’ is the challenge in the world. We don’t do what we know. Organizations create a plan and there’s nobody to execute it. So, you are if you are a doer, who will do it to the finishing line, I think you’re blessed with an extraordinary strength that many of us do not have. Because we are compulsive thinkers, and we are not doers.  You’re bringing in a great asset to whatever you do, first. So first, be very proud of it.

Yeah, thinkers will come up with an idea, these are all intellectual vagabonds. They will keep on giving another idea. Another idea. Another idea, another idea, another idea. Not that everything gets executed. Chumma! (Simply) Keep on giving ideas. So, it’s not that is required. But however, how you develop your thinking.

You develop thinking skills. In fact, right now we are saying school should institutionalize a way by which they can develop the thinking skills of people. It’s done through simulation; you simulate the whole thing. For example, one famous example I’ll give you, then you don’t have to follow that example. But we’ll give you a famous example.

E.I.D Parry was in a loss of about three crores when the Murugappa group took over and M V Subbiah was given this responsibility of reviving the entire organization.  They always brought in new new people and said, ‘How you can turn around the organization’.  A lot of people came up with a lot of ideas, but because that is what they have been taught to think. So, they all came in the direction, but everything has been tried, nothing had worked. So, M V Subbiah did something very, very interesting.

He hired 10, MBA freshers and told them – I want to close this company in one year’s time. So, give me a business plan. Now you’ve never studied is an MBA, How to close a company.

Now, these guys, they have never heard a sentence like that – want to close the company in one year’s time, give me a business plan. So first one month, none of them were able to take it.  In fact, they used to come back and say – we don’t have an idea – or any idea they come up with M.V. Subbiah used to counter that by saying – if we implement this and it goes like this, then the company will become bigger. So, I can’t close it. So, I want an idea where we can definitely close it.

And once you train your mind long enough on how to close the company, entha company vennalum close pannalam! (we can close any company!).  That is not difficult.  So, the mind got trained into this direction and they came up with a fabulous report on how to close down the entire company. Then he called his entire top management and handed overed that report and said – Reverse engineer this.  Do the opposite of whatever has been suggested in this – and in three years’ time they turned it around to 21 crores profit.

What he did was, he simulated – which was not obvious. So, for example, how do you develop thinking?  Paper – Pen.  There is no greater… no mobile, no… all that…

Paper and Pen.

Write a question on paper.  If I do not have to give credit to my market anymore, how can I still do my business? The question itself you might faint. But after you wake up, sprinkle the water and all, and start thinking next one week, make this is the assignment for you. You cannot give credit to the market anymore. And still, you’re able to do your business.

In my opinion, even if you get two ideas that is thinking skills, and one week you think about it, you will be able to bring that up. It’s not that it’s not, you can bring that up.  If I will not have to offer more than 5% discount, or if I have to offer no discount, how can I increase this? If I have to increase the number of transaction that happens every day, from four to seven? What all can I do?

Create simulated environments.

And what propels your mind into thinking is you have to write that question; you have to see that question. I asked in my own mind…  we are not Isaac Newton. Why did the apple fall? Next minute Apple saputtu pooinde iruppom…  (Will eat the apple and move on…) We are not Isaac Newton. Okay. So for all of us we have to write the question, and you have to see the question. And the moment you’ll see the question, your mind sets itself in that direction. And only one question per week.

Simulated environments. I want to provide employment for 100 ladies this year. No, in my business, I don’t need 100 people.  It’s a simulated environment, I want to provide employment for another 100. ladies this year.  Write the question, that’s all.  Entire week only think about it.  You will be surprised with the options. Even if you come up with one option that is thinking skills. And you will realize six months from now, you write a question, you don’t need a week, it will flow… ideas will flow… it’s just that you’ll have to train.

The ability to follow a logical sequence of whatever I’ve taken up is the work of the left side of the brain. The ability to think beyond the obvious is the work of the right side of the brain. So right through my life I have been lifting weight only with my right hand right through I’ve been exercising my right hand and my left hand has not been used much. Obviously, this will become… weak… what I don’t use, I lose. So, we have never exercised the right side of the brain and in a conventional education system, there is no opportunity to exercise.

For example, when you do your post-graduation in Jainology, what happens is, only your memory is tested which we which is left side of the brain.  I have to by heart – reproduce.  By heart – reproduce. Somewhere, I really wish – on this philosophy can you write a poetry on your own?  Rather than asking – Can you write the Thirukural the way Thiruvalluvar wrote on that in seven words – four plus three…

I really wish we have an education system where the question itself is – On success write your own Thirukural, it should have only seven words.  Out of 40 students 40 Thirukkural will come.  Some may be useless. Some may be nonsense but trust me, you will discover a Thiruvalluvar inside the class, if you ask them to write.  But in our education system, you don’t challenge the right side at all.

So, if you can challenge the right side by creating these questions, which are from simulated environment, you will be surprised about how you will develop your thinking skills. You just need your right side of the brain to be exercised.