Seven mental philosophies which I have seen has built ordinary individuals into extraordinary leaders who did much more than anybody anticipated them to do in their lives.

One – Expect more from myself. One of the human curse is our expectations are always directed extroverted, introvert them. I will expect more from myself. We expect from government, we expect from relationships, we expect from families, we expect from God… You will sit there and expect from people who conduct the session… People who conduct the session will expect cooperation from you. But my expectations from you is not something I can control. I can expect but I don’t have control over it. The only expectation I can control is the expectation I have over myself.

The starting point of excellence is, I will expect more from myself. I will surpass my own expectations. I will surpass the expectations of the world all the time. When Jesus Christ said, if they ask you to walk a mile, walk two.  Always go the extra mile. I don’t think he was speaking – spirituality. He was speaking – management philosophy. In everything, go the extra mile, deliver more than what is expected, surpass expectations. The standards you hold for yourself must always be higher than the standards the world expects of you.

So, the first leadership thought…  the first leadership gateway… the first leadership Mental philosophy is – I will always expect more from myself. And from everything.

Rather than begging the world to appreciate you never miss an opportunity to appreciate others when the convention is going on… Don’t come like a spectator and walk back like a spectator. Any session makes a difference…Go to the professor, find them outside. Never inhibited, never be inhibited to do what is right and what is good. Go to them… volunteer and tell them – Professor it made a lot of difference to me, thank you so much. Each one of them are here not because they want to receive something, but they want to give… and recognize that intent. Never miss an opportunity to go and express yourself, wherever you find good… wherever you find that is right. And that’s true with everything.

If you’re part of a team of 25 people, tell yourself, ‘I’m going to emerge the best’. You got to be the best. You want Krishna in your life, then you got to be Arjuna. What do I mean? Arjuna was the best Kshatriya in the Kurukshetra. God Himself prefers to be next to the best than anybody else. So, strive to be the best. I will expect more from myself.

A father used to always read a newspaper. And this was his daily habit at the end of the day. And he had a six-year-old daughter who kept persisting that play with me, but he was interested only in reading the newspaper. And you know, children are very adamant.

Just then the father saw there was a full-page advertisement of an international courier company, and the world map was printed there. The father came up with situational brilliance. He tore the sheet of paper from the newspaper, tore it into multiple pieces scattered all over the floor. And he said – ‘This is your jigsaw puzzle, assemble the world map properly and then I will play with you.’ Then he continued to read the newspaper. To his astonishment within 10 minutes, the child assembled the entire world map, called out to dad, and said – ‘See!’. He was shocked. He knows his own IQ levels. So, seeing that this child has done this, he believed it must be a genetical skip. Looking at his expression of shock and surprise, the little one said – ‘Dad I know why you’re so shocked.  But let me tell you, when you were tearing the newspaper, I saw there was a face of a man on the other side. Dad, I don’t know where Mexico should be, where Ghana should be, where Russia should be, where New Zealand should be, where India should be, but I know where face should be, where nose should be, where eyes should be.’ And it seems the child said – ‘Dad, I got the man right the world became right.’ And this is the only solution. Rather than expecting the world should become right the world should live up to my expectations… you get yourself right and you live up to your own expectations. And there’s a very different life you will begin to live from there onwards.

So, what do I do after I expect more from myself?

Mental philosophy TWO:

I will align myself to the highest work ethic. Work ethic cannot be a HR policy.

You can’t do something because there is a policy in the hospital.

You have to be driven from within.

From hygiene to meticulousness to excellence to empathy, a tone of loving your voice, a happy expression in your eyes. In fact, most people should forget their pain when they come within the vicinity of another human being, especially a doctor. And this does not come because there is a book which says 5.1 policy this 5.1 year, he it has to come from within, I will align myself to the highest work ethic. And you have to evolve this over a period of time.

I will align myself to the highest work ethic,

Long time back, in the United States of America, a set of people who were working by the railway tracks, when they still had the typical system where tracks were laid, wood used to hold the tracks together like we have it here. A train came by and a real-life incident…

A train came, all the workers moved to the side and the train instead of going, stopped. There was only one air-conditioned coach in the train. The door opened. A man peeped from there and screamed out to one of those workers, daily wage workers – ‘Hey, Dave come inside.’ Dave Anderson, who was one of those workers, went inside the air conditioning coach. For the next 30 minutes there was laughter boisterous noise. And 30 minutes later, Dave Anderson came out. The man from inside waved his hand and the train passed.  The fellow workers went to Dave Anderson and said, ‘Who is that man who stopped the train from an air-conditioned coach, knew you by name… Who is that man?’

Dave Anderson told his fellow workers – ‘You didn’t recognize him?  He is Mr. Jim Murphy, the chairman of American railroad.’ They became even more curious – ‘How come the chairman of American railroad knows you?’ Dave Anderson said – ‘Over 20 years back, both of us came to work on the same day for American railroad. And both of us were doing the same job.’ They become even more curious. ‘20 years ago, both of you were doing the same work. Today he is the chairman of American railroad and you’re still doing the same work. What do you think is the difference?’ And Dave Anderson said ‘Oh 20 years ago, I came to work for $1.75 an hour. Mr. Jim Murphy came to work for American railways and that made all the difference. For me, $1.75 was focus. I was working for American railways was a byproduct. For Jim Murphy – Working for American railways was a purpose. Money was a byproduct and that made all the difference, and this cannot be implanted through policies. It has to come from deep within you.

I would urge all of you sitting here to align yourself to the highest work ethic.

First, I will expect more from myself. Two, I’ll align myself to the highest work ethic.

Three, I’ll back it up with relentless, intelligent effort.

Even effortlessness can be achieved only through effort. If we ever see somebody is able to do something effortlessly, trust, so much effort has gone behind for them to reach that level of effortlessness.

So, if you’re experiencing excellence, here, there is an effort behind that. I’ll back it up with relentless, intelligent effort. I’m using the word intelligent here because you have to evolve. Every today of a human being has to be better than your yesterday of all the creations of God. Man alone, even if one breath is still left in you can improve upon himself. Socrates asked for a book to be read on the last day of his life, knowing very well he has to drink poison the next morning, the security guard in the prison asked him, – ‘You are going to die tomorrow. Why will you want to read a book today?’ And Socrates said – ‘So that I can die more intelligent tomorrow.’

Nobel Prize winner and Professor Chandrasekar should have got a Nobel Prize when he was only 27. Yet, for whatever reason, it did not happen. He got his first Nobel Prize only at 70 for astrophysics. And he was asked – ‘Do you think Justice has been delayed? What you should have got at 27 has come to you only at 70.’ And Professor Chandrasekar said, – ‘I’m glad it got delayed. Because if I had got the Nobel Prize, when I was only 27, I would have started enjoying my position in science, and stopped enjoying science. Because I didn’t get the Nobel Prize, till 70, I was able to enjoy science.  And now see… ever since I’ve got the Nobel Prize, I’ve not gone back to a laboratory, I’m only giving media interviews.’

And this is one challenge I’ve seen with a lot of successful people. Success makes you enjoy your position in the game, and you stop enjoying the game itself. You become administrator of the game and you don’t enjoy the game anymore. That means you stop learning, you stop growing. There cannot be a day that you hit the bed without having learned something new. Without improving yourself.  It need not be in your field of specialization; it can be anything. Human Being alone as an evolving consciousness has been bestowed with his ability that every today of mine can be better than yesterday. And every tomorrow of mine can be better than today. Keep striving with every breath of yours. I will back it up with relentless intelligent effort.

Now when you expect more from yourself, one, when you align yourself to the highest work ethic, two, when you back it up with relentless intelligent effort, three – does it guarantee – you will always succeed?  You will succeed most of the times, but you will also have setbacks. One of the challenges in our education system is, we are always told to succeed, succeed… succeed… But nobody teaches us how to deal with failures. And if you don’t have a mental philosophy to deal with failures, you will not have resilience, you will not bounce back in life. There can be setbacks, there can be mistakes, it need not be with the patient. It can be with an approach, it can be with a strategy, it can be with an expansion, it can be with deployment of funds, it can be a relationship issue that I have with a colleague in the organization, in the hospital. It can be I didn’t communicate to the patient the way I should have communicated to the patient. It could be that I have a lot of scope to improve on the quality of my communication.

So, five and six, four and five is – four – Treat every success as motivation. Do not allow it to feed your ego. The sheer burden of your ego will stop you from progressing.  Treat every success as motivation, let it get you excited to do a lot more than what you’ve already done. Do not allow it to feed your ego. And five, treat every setback as maturity gained. Don’t see that as a failure. Otherwise, it will dampen your spirits. Nobody in the field of science can ever see anything as a failure because in science, there is no failure. In science, there are experiments and experiment by the very word means, I still don’t know what will be my results, but whatever are my results, I will use those results to advance my research.

So, four, treat success as motivation and do not allow it to feed your ego. And five, treat setbacks as maturity gained, and do not view them as failures.

Six, integrate your personal good, to the larger good. It will be foolish to tell anybody from the modern contemporary generation, that you should be a renunciate you should not have personal aspirations. You should not have personal desires. A lot of people say people like Buddha, and Christ did not desire anything in life. But when they lived, they didn’t have the toys that you have. They didn’t have iPhones, they didn’t have smartphones, they didn’t have the cars that you can drive. In fact, they didn’t have enough toys to desire; you will live in a very different world.

It will be foolish to tell you do not have personal aspirations. But it will be beautiful if all of you can master a very simple mental philosophy, I will integrate my personal good to the larger good. Anything I do will not only satiate my individual desires, but I will also ensure it will contribute to the larger good. That means every time I lift myself in the process, I will ensure like in the Vedas, there is a beautiful expression it says – Lift yourself so that you can lift others.

See yourself as an evangelist in the profession of medicine, and not just as a doctor. Let there be love in your eyes. Let there be warmth in your touch. Let there be empathy in the tone of your voice. Let your body language somehow communicate to everybody who comes to you… in those moments you are divine representation to them. Somewhere everything about you let it communicate to people – ‘I am therefore you; I will take care; I will do the best that I can do.’

Integrate your personal good to the larger good in everything that you do.

And seven, see yourself as an instrument of a higher force. Somewhere, ensure that at no stage you forget, I know coming from the background of science, for some of you, to embrace faith is not going to be an easy thing. It’s going to be a challenge. But there’s absolutely no question about it. The more and more you see yourself as an instrument of a higher force, there is sheer freedom in the way you operate.

When my mother was fighting for life in Apollo, and one of the most respected cardio physicians in the country, honorary physician to the President of India, and every day, I used to see him, walk towards one of the altar of God, bow down to it and then go inside. So, one of those days when we were sitting together, I asked them, ‘I can understand all of them believing in God. You are a scientist, you know, everything inside there, even those who go to temple and pray for the return of their mother, finally come and trust the doctor saying that ‘You only have to save my mother’s life.’ So why do you go and pray every day?’

And he said, ‘My best friend used to live… opposite house, across the road. And one day her son called me and said, ‘I think my mother has had a heart attack, can you come and do something about it?’ I ran to the house in the middle of the night, I was holding my best friend in my arms. Even if she was dying about any other organ failure, it’s okay. The one I’m supposed to be the best at. And in that I know she was collapsing. Her son and daughter-in-law did not have a child for 13 years. And right now the daughter in law was pregnant and the child was expected another 15 days’ time. She said, ‘This is what I waited for all through my life. Just keep me alive for some more time. I want to see my grandchild before I die.’ Except crying in that moment. I couldn’t do anything because I knew she was dying. And I knew the time has passed. And she collapsed. I did not return to Apollo for the next few days. I was devastated emotionally. Then the senior management of Apollo came and said, ‘You have let your friend go. By not taking care of others, you’re letting a lot of others go. Will your friend appreciate it?  Come back to work. So next day I returned back to Apollo. I’m not even notice this altar of God ever before. I used to just walk past that. But somehow next day, because of whatever happened in my life… I helplessly went in front of the altar. Ego shattering it was for a scientist like me, but I did whisper ‘You made me realize – it’s Thy will that will be done!’ ‘In sha Allah’ It can happen, not otherwise.’

As Krishna told Arjuna – ‘Arjuna, this thumb of yours cannot move without my sanction. So where is the question of you feeling, I did it. I did it… Arjuna I am doing everything through you. You’re just my instrument.’  Krishna used to say…  And this great cardio physician said ‘I stood in front of the altar. Ego shattering it was!  But still I prayed. I know unless you decide, I will not be able to save a life. And my prayer from that day to today is – ‘My Lord. Please save a few more lives through me!’

With the seven principles, I’ll expect more from myself. I will align myself to the highest work ethic. I’ll back it up with relentless intelligent effort. I will see success as motivation gained and will not allow it to feed my ego. I will see setbacks, as maturity gained and will not be devastated by seeing it as a failure. I will integrate the personal good to the larger good. And with a prayer – My Lord, Let lot more people in the world see this world better by you using all of them as your instruments. And again, releasing a thought, let there be so much abundance in the world – Not a single good idea should ever die for want of funds and together, I believe we can build a very beautiful world.