India

Ravi Shastri: Just eat Uthappa

“Youngsters watching the IPL might give up on idle or dosa for breakfast. Just eat Uthappa, and you might smash them a long way.” 

—Ravi Shastri. 

Ashwini Nachappa: Happy by-product

“An Olympic medal is a happy by-product of a purposefully designed programme that begins in school. Starting, therefore, with an objective of winning medals is holding the wrong end of the stick. By thinking about winning medals first, we will never build a system that naturally and continually throws up great athletes.”

—Ashwini Nachappa.

Saina Nehwal: Likes

“… I get over a million likes when I meet our political leaders or film actors; I get around a few lakh likes on winning matches,  or for snaps from monuments or foreign landmarks.” 

—Saina Nehwal. 

Rahul Verghese: Unlearning

​”A third, and more basic, level of unlearning in order to learn is when having learnt on your own, and reached a certain stage, you then plan to take a quantum leap . Often we realize that what is required is not harder work, but a smarter way of doing the same thing.”

—Rahul Verghese. 

Rahul Verghese: Basic principles

​”… you may find these basic principles can be applied to your work and to managing your workload: 

■ Never try and do the same thing repeatedly if you are trying to improve. 

■ Look at a holistic build- up and focus on different weak links. 

■ Do not work to exhaustion but work towards a build-up scientifically and sensibly, so that come the big day, you are ready to be firing on all cylinders.

 ■ Rest adequately. 

■ And . . . you can write in your very own set of learnings.”

—Rahul Verghese. 

Dileep Premachandran: Glass ceilings

“Those that shatter glass ceilings have to put up with multiple indignities along the way, and any softness or weakness will be pounced upon.” 

—Dileep Premachandran. 

Virat Kohli: Confidence versus rudeness

​”A fit body gives you confidence. And there’s nothing more impressive than a great attitude, which you can wear on your sleeve. But you’ll have to remember the difference between being rude and being confident.”

—Virat Kohli. 

Roelant Oltmans: Only one crazy person

“I think there’s only one crazy person in the world, and that’s why I’m staying.”

—Roelant Oltmans . 

Milind Soman: Running lights me up

“Something triggers internally the moment when my bare feet touch the earth. To put it simply, running lights me up. The light that burns within me reaches my soul when I run – it alerts my mind, and my body simply loves it. Nothing compares to the light within me when I run.”
—Milind Soman. 

Bishan Singh Bedi: Majority of one

“I derive a lot of my mental and my physical strength from my spiritual strength. If spirituality doesn’t teach you to speak up, what price are you paying? Speak up not for the heck of it but when desired. I’ve often been told that I’m a crusader kind of person. They say ‘you are in a absolute minority’ but I say, ‘No, I am, by the grace of God, in a majority of one’. ”

—Bishan Singh Bedi.