BEING CRAZY ISN’T ENOUGH

The Entrepreneurship Development Cell of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon in collaboration with Asian Institute of Family Managed Businesses organized a talk by Mr. Prem Kumar Singh. The topic of the talk was “Being Crazy isn’t enough”.

Mr. Prem Kumar Singh is a mountaineer and an adventurer. He has been to various corners of the world and has been to various adventurous places from the war torn areas of Russia or Kargil to the exotic rain-forests of Papua, New Guinea to the mighty peaks of the Himalayas. In 2013, he climbed the highest peaks of 4 different continent including Mount Everest, Mount Elbrus, Mount Aconcagua, Mount Puncak Jaya.

The event was inaugurated jointly by Mr. Pulkit Gupta, Mentor AIFMB and Mr. Prem Kumar Singh.

The objective of the session was to give a better understanding to the participants of:

1. Importance of goal setting

2. Optimize potential in everyday performance

3. Be more aware of the environment and the ecosystem around.

4. Be focused towards goals.

5. Increase the overall energy of the workplace and be more dedicated towards the objectives.

Mr. Singh said that to be successful in life one needs to know what he is doing, love what he is doing and believe in what he is doing. He explained that dreams are the prerequisite for anything great to be achieved but they only come true through meticulous planning and tireless execution of goals. In this talk he focused on the importance of goal setting and discussed his own experience of climbing Mount Everest and how the key to this giant ordeal is proper planning and goal setting. Mr. Prem Kumar Singh motivated the students with his experiences and shared with them the key towards being successful. He said it is good to dream high and being called crazy for one’s dream but only dreaming isn’t enough. The first key to achieve one’s dream and transform it into reality is by setting small goals to reach to that dream because goals makes us action oriented. The second key is to find synergies from the environment that would lead towards the goals. He said being confident is the key to success that imbibes a sense of strong faith.

Mr. Singh emphasized on 3 P’s for being successful which are patience, persistence and perseverance. He said that though it takes certain tests through time to achieve something big, till then one needs to be patient to face all the challenges and steadily confront them. Persistence is required to attain the goal and to keep repeating the success one should have perseverance.

Through this talk the participants were intended to be given Entrepreneurship Lessons from Mountaineering.

For a climber, the vision is not just to reach the summit of the mountain but to come back safely as well. Similarly for an entrepreneur, it is important to set the right vision. Vision is any target or aim that drives the need from within to achieve it.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal to a person. For a climber, strengths or weaknesses may be athleticism, breath control, mental stability, mountaineering techniques. For an entrepreneur, these may be patents, technological expertise, experience, etc. It is often difficult for an entrepreneur to list out his own strengths and weaknesses where other employees, stakeholders, friends or guides may help.

Opportunities and threats are generally external factors to a person. For a climber, opportunities and threats may be weather conditions, government permission to climb, availability of local support, etc. Similarly for an entrepreneur, market conditions, government regulations, competition, customers, social changes, etc are the opportunities and threats.

Climbers often plan and prepare for months before starting the mountaineering expedition. The planning involves financial planning to equipment planning. Plans are created on the basis of extensive research. For an entrepreneur, a clear business plan in writing is a must. It must also be clear and easy to understand. A typical business plan would include fund requirement, target customers, infrastructure requirement, employee requirement, performance standards, etc.

Few climbers dare to climb alone. However, most climb in teams. It is good to have team members with complementary skills. There’s a lot of strength in a business team that can be organized and utilized much like a mountain-climbing team. The members of the business team need to recognize that they are “roped together.” Their successes and failures proceed from a common mission.

The session ended with a question and answer round between the participants and the experts. Many of the queries and doubts of the participants got cleared.

The overall session was very motivating and left students with a streak of confidence and belief on their dreams. They could relate their lives with the speaker who was also very young and this inspired them to have a clear vision of where they would want to see themselves in coming future.