Akash Gautam | TEDx IIT Kanpur | Top Keynote Speakers in India | Best Motivational Speakers in India

Mr. Akash Gautam. Okay, thank you.

Welcome, Akash.

Thank you.

Thanks for the kind words.

Good morning. Okay, when I was called by the IIT Kanpur guys for the first time, and they told me that the theme for this year's TEDx is Connecting the Dots, The first thing which came to my mind was, is it about patronizing the use of dotted condoms? Connecting the dots. But then I realized Kanpur is in India, and in India, in spite of we being 1.25 billion, the babies come from hospitals, right? I looked up on Wikipedia, and Wikipedia gave me a more confusing definition of connecting the dots. It said, Connecting the dots could be used as a metaphor to associate one idea with another against a large backdrop of data to lead to a bigger bang. More confusing, right? I kept on thinking, what is connecting dots all about? Did Saif Ali Khan connect his dots when he went ahead to marry Chameli after divorcing Chameli ki shaadi wali? And I hope he stopped there, because if he connects his dots further, He would go on to marry Chikni Chameli as Katrina Kaif, right? Right. ACP Pratyuman Singh has been connecting his dots in CID since the inception of CID. Right. And Shane Warne is the best at connecting dots, you know, be it Rajasthan Royals or Liz Hurley Disloyal. Right. You've heard of a university called as Lovely Professional University? Right. It's India's largest private national university. It was started by a lala called Lala Lavliji, who made excellent laddus. He made so much money out of selling laddus that he connected his laddus— I mean dots— to start a university. Malias are no more in the rich list. The list of billionaires is called as the Forbes list, but Deepika Padukone calls it as her to-do list of connecting the dots. Right. Pretty confusing, you know. I'm still wondering what is connecting the dots all about, right? Um, see, the whole concept is so confusing that there are problems associated. One, you may not have enough dots. Your dots may not be round. You have to search for those dots, right? So I thought I'd very well come to IIT Kanpur and make it simple for you, right? So thank you very much for inviting me over at such prestigious Among some prestigious people. And over the next 15-odd minutes, I'm going to talk about how you can connect your dots. Right. Okay. If you look at any achiever, any guy you think has connected the dots or done really well in life, one thing which is true about him or her is— forget about the dots— he has that force. You know, that force which has made him reach the higher orbits in life. That force which made him become what he actually is rather than what he wished to be, what he wanted to be. That force which represents how much far he will go further in life. And top achievers, they protect that force, they defend that force, they vehemently make it grow stronger every passing day. I don't know about the dots, all I know is that people who do well in their lives have a great force behind them. They have that kira with them that they want to make a big mark on the world. Right? When the force is there, what happens is that the directions appear. And when the directions appear, movement happens. And when the movement happens, results come because of the law of action and reaction. And if the results are positive, people say, this guy connected his dots. Right? So it's nothing but a force. Right. One very important aspect of force is a word called fearlessness. Right? The kind of work I do, I'm a motivator, I'm a corporate trainer, I travel across the world and do my workshops. One thing which I require as a part of my work is spontaneity. Right? And when I began working almost a decade and a half back, my jokes were really poor. I used to tell the world that I'm a poet, I'm a comedian both. If my jokes don't resonate with you, call me a poet. Right. But my intent— I could have stopped him there. But I thought, let me be fearless. Let me keep on cracking poor jokes. Let me move ahead with that inertia of motion. And gradually what happened, that fearlessness maybe helped evolve a little bit. The most important thing about creating that force within you a little more higher is to be fearless. And when you're fearless, spontaneity will happen, and everything else would happen which you call as connecting the dots.

It was this fearlessness which, which maybe had Newton observe that the apple doesn't fly, but it falls on the earth. You know, in fact, Newton troubled you all. You know, you study a lot of physics. I wish instead of the apple, the tree had fallen on him, and the physics wouldn't have been so complicated. Right. So this fearlessness is the most important thing. Agree that this fearlessness can go wrong nine out of ten times. दस में से नौ बार ये fearlessness गलत भी हो सकता है, पर जब एक बार सही होगा, people will say this guy connected his dots. And you just need to repeat those instances of one out of ten time and again before you make a mark big mark. You have to carefully observe. You have to really look back in retrospect and observe that what is it in your life that really adds to your force? That really goads your force, and you have to keep on doing things, those things more and more. If you talk about my own self, what worked for me, what really added to my force was negative criticism. When someone criticized me, when there was negativity around me, I used it as an advantage to maybe prosper myself. I'll give you a small example. Almost 30 years back, I was sacked from my second job in the garment industry, and the reasons they gave were. One of the three reasons they gave were demotivating colleagues. I'm a motivator by profession, right? I trust me. I don't really blame them. They were right. I was really a brat. I was very naughty and a mischievous guy, right? But what I learned was since I knew a thing about demotivating, I knew how demotivation happens. I flipped.

Right?

To actually understand how people would get motivated too. Right? By class 7th, I failed in English. That's because my parents— I come from a family of doctors, and suddenly they got posted into a town or a city from a village, and I was suddenly finding myself in a convent school where everything, every subject was in English. I failed in the second term of 7th class in English. The girl I thought I had a crush on, who happened to be an army officer's daughter, she used to laugh at me for my English. I really used to feel very miserable. I was really vehement about her. Really liked her. In fact, you know, that force was still there. I used to daydream that one day when I grow up, I'll become an army officer and kill Pakistani soldiers and come to her and propose her. You know, so, so daydreaming, you know, that force was still there. I remember, right?

You know.

Now, English was something which really demotivated me because of my failures, because people used to laugh at me. I'm happy sharing that after 8 years, that force helped me learn the entire Oxford Dictionary. Right? More than that, if you search on— if you're on Facebook, you can search for a link called Akash Ka Vocab Dhaba. Today, this is one of India's biggest Facebook communities on becoming better at communication skills. With more than half a lakh people doing crazy things to help each other learn English. Right? So it is a force. And bigger than the force is a 4-letter word which starts with F and is not what you're thinking.

Right?

It is flip. F-L-I-P. I know what you're thinking, right? Okay. Flip it up. Whenever there's negativity, when there is this weakness, flip it up. It has given me a lot of confidence whenever I flip my negativity. It agglomerates, it conglomerates a lot of energy within me to go ahead and make an impact. Right. So how do you do it? How do you begin? How do you begin the process? How do you proactively begin the process of connecting the dots? Right. As I run my own race, I'm constantly on the lookout for people who are fellow voyagers. And then I observe them. I try to be a good student of life and living better. And what I observed from them and what has really helped me out, I want to share with you, and I hope you're keen on listening to it. I'm going to advise a strategy to you which will help you connect your dots, a very practical strategy. Do these things. Thing 1, think what are those 1 or 2 core skills within you that you think you're really, really good at. Think. And the decision should not be on the basis of that you think you are good at.

Right.

I'm saying, think about those one or two things that you're really genuinely good at. And the decision should be on the basis of, entirely on the basis of, what kind of results those one or two skills are likely to produce in the marketplace. The results should be the only criteria to determine what are those one or two good things that you are good at. Only results and not what you believe in. For example, a decade and a half back, I thought I was good at motivating, training, and adding some bit of humor to what I do. I thought I was good at it. So I accepted these 2 or 3 things as my core skills. Next level. What do you do next? Once you've known what you're good at and you know it is going to work in the market, next thing what you do is start moving the needle for the people who need it using your core skills. What I mean to say here is, I thought I was good at motivating and training. I started doing it with a few people initially. I started helping them, right? What happened out of doing that, that the world started taking notice. The world started seeing this guy is doing something which is different, right? There's a famous adage which I'm sure you would have heard of, that if you have the hammer, then everything else looks like a nail. Right? This adage could be used positively also. When I'm talking about the hammer, I'm meaning hammer is the core skills that you think you have. And the nails are something which you have to discover in your journey, while you peregrinate, while you journey down. Right? And that's what I tried to do over the last 15 years. What I was trying to do was, I thought my core skills were these, my hammer was this, and the nails I found were training, Corporate sector CEOs, Miss India beauty pageant contestants, people who prepare for test prep exams, college students, school students, rural women of Haryana, Bihar jail inmates. Nails? I thought I was good at it. It's just about hitting the nails. And while I was trying to move the needle for all of these, the world was taking notice. I added social media. People started observing that this guy is doing something which is different. While I was adding humor to my corporate training, people saw that this thing has some external appeal. It is being done in an arena which hitherto has been an area of people who are very sophisticated. And anything which is extreme is likely to get spoken about and talked about and noted about more. So what happened was that while people observed that I was relentlessly doing trying to move the needle for a lot of these people, right? They started trusting me. Because the market trusts someone who's been doing the same thing for a lot of years.

Right?

And that really helped me get more and more work. It's about staying put for those decade or so and keeping on doing what you've been trying to do out of your core skills. For a lot of people that are sitting here, I would like to advise, if you think that you're good at your one or two core skills, Build thought leadership around them. Let the world take notice of your thought leadership around them. For example, if someone wants to be a great chef or a wonderful SEO expert or someone wants to make good movies or want to be a physical fitness trainer, start talking about that. Start writing about that. Start posting about that. Start doing that and help people move the needle in their lives out of that. People will take notice and once you stay put in that for a few years, you are going to make an impact. The next thing which you're required to do in my strategy is relentlessly invest in improving your core skills. We talked about those 2 or 3 core skills? Invest heavily in them. The more you invest in your core skills, the more you'll be able to make a difference into the people's lives using the same skills. Right. Vision backed by an intent is an awesome thing, but a vision backed by an intent coupled with massive action is an unstoppable thing. Right? So, you need to work harder. You know, you need to be constantly sharpening your core skills. I work hard. I read a lot of books. I search a lot of blogs. I invest into my trainings. I go and get myself trained at a lot of places. I try to sit with people who are better than them. You need to do something similar. Right? As you work more hard, the answers will come. No one knows the answers. The answers will come if you keep your directions right.

And how do you know if you're on the right path?

You will know that you're on the right path when moving the needle for others, when moving the needle for a lot of other people becomes progressively simpler. It becomes fun.

It becomes so easy.

Then that is the first sign that you're doing it right.

Right?

You follow these steps and you want it or not want it, you'll be on the road to connecting your dots.

Right?

5 things, 5 decisions that I took in the last 12, 13 years that really stood my way, that really helped me out. I want to share those 5 decisions with you. The first decision that I took, that I will always remain free-spirited. If you look at any guy who's done great in life, And he definitely will be an example of a guy who has remained free-spirited. So if you want to really make a mark and connect your dots, you ought to be one. You don't have an option.

The kind of profession I'm in, if you want to be in a similar kind of profession which requires creativity, the first thing you need to do is to kill your busyness. Right? At any point of time, you're just one thought away from an insight or an epiphany. And that insight can really change a lot of things in your life. But a very tiny minority of people get those insights. The reason is simple, because they're too busy in their lives. Life is sending you messages, but you're too busy to listen to them. Right? The messages will come. You need to be ready to receive them. If you look at my website and the products which I do out there for corporates, for schools and colleges, Some of the products which I think have been a great hit in the last 15 years have definitely been the only ones wherein I could add to those products some insights that I had while I was relaxed. Right? So you need to be coming out of the small trivial issues in life and think about bigger things in life. The Rupa underwear guys, they said it so right. जो अंदर फिट वो बाहर हिट, right है ना? If if you're too worried about smaller micro things, bigger breakthroughs and excitements will never happen in your life. The second thing which helped me in the last fifteen years is is my decision to remain disciplined, right? I I know that आज के दिन में मुझे ये पाँच काम करने हैं तो करने and you have to be little sunki about doing it. If you look into any cantonment area in India, why is that the cantonment areas are so clean vis-à-vis the civilian areas? The answer is simple: discipline. A lot of people are very talented, but they mess it up because they are not disciplined. The third decision which I took, it may not resonate with you much, but it helped me. You may not agree with me. I took a decision to be slightly overconfident.

Slightly.

Slightly. I'm not saying I'm trying to be cavalier or haughty or super serious. No, right? I'm wanting to be slightly overconfident because that has worked for me in life. How it has worked for me in life? Because you're all at IIT, brilliant people, you know Newton's law of motion, that a body continues to be in a state of motion. Being slightly overconfident has helped me build some extra momentum and extra inertia, and it has opened for me some extra few doors. And over a period of time, if you begin with slight overconfidence, you'll be able to modulate it also. Venus Williams said it so right when she said, when I walk into the court, I believe that I'm better than the opponent.

Because if you believe that the opponent is better, I've already lost it.

Right? The 4th decision which really helped me out is, I think I try to gather or garner some ability to stay ahead of criticism in life. Because what will happen when you make progress in life, the criticism is bound to come. Even if you have a decent amount of competence in any field that you think so, right, you become vulnerable to criticism. Yes, you do. In fact, if in the recent past you've not been criticized, you need to ask yourself, do you bring sufficient value to the marketplace?

No one could make everyone happy. Even the gods could not do it who walked the planet. Right? I just very well save my energy in inspiring my believers than trying to answer my critics. Because the higher you go, the smaller you look to the people who are on the earth. If people are talking behind your back, it simply means that you have a life more awesome than them. Right? Don't waste your energy in explaining to people. Spend as much time in becoming fabulous in your own life.

Right?

The fifth thing which helped me out, and trust me, I hadn't planned it, just happened, is God. Is luck. While you look to make a grade, oh, at that point of time in my life, 5 years back, I needed that person who helped me with so many things. From where did he come and then he went?

Scary.

You need loads of luck to make an impact in today's world. Meditate upon God. Right? He really helps you out. मैं तो अकेला ही चला था, जानिबे मंज़ल. जानिबे मंज़ल is towards destination. मैं तो अकेला ही चला था, जानिबे मंज़ल. मेरा सदगुरु सही समय पर सही आदमी, सही दोस्त भेजता गया और काफिला बढ़ता गया. Right? You know, you need, you need, you need people to do it for you. You can't do it alone. Right? And there's no age to becoming fearless. Rabindranath Tagore started painting at the age of 60. Bomul Irani started acting at the age of 43. Our own Saif Ali Khan is trying to make it large at 42, right? So there's no age to beginning to doing it, right? You just have to enjoy the journey, right? Um, um, दूध के फटने से तो वो लोग डरते हैं जिन्हें फटा हुआ दूध से रसगुल्ला या पनीर बनाना नहीं आता, right? You know, so whatever is negative in your life, flip it up and convert it into a positivity. The journey, my dear friends, I can tell you for sure, will be not easy. It will be very difficult. But let me tell you, always, always, it will be worth it. Thank you so very much. You've been a wonderful audience. Thank you very much.