Mantras for Success

Mantras for Success is a book about India’s greatest CEOs. There is something unique about being an Indian CEO in India because they have to navigate many minefields before even thinking of reaching the consumer. Once they do that, the vagaries of doing business in India are so challenging that it takes a lot of courage, at times guile, perhaps even foresight to get on with what they wish to achieve. 

Being a CEO in India today with an overzealous media is not easy. Indian businesspersons have also been criticised for being part of a system that is prone to crony capitalism. They have lived and worked under the shadow of suspicion, where every attempt has been made to denigrate their achievements. 

This book highlights those examples where people have built businesses which inspired others. There is also a social cost that a CEO has to incur. Indians don’t take too easily to failure and consider failure as a sign of inherent foolishness or the inability to get things right. Indians generally don’t realise that someone they admire can fail, and yet when that person fails, they almost revel in his or her downfall. Even though being audacious in business is an enduring virtue, one of the biggest highlights of the book is the mantra that success cannot be achieved without failure.