Shiv Khera was in Calcutta for Fulcrum 2012. (Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya) Location Courtesy: Hyatt Regency Calcutta

Winners don’t do different things, they do things differently” — that’s the trademark quote we all identify Shiv Khera with. The motivational speaker and author of the international bestseller You Can Win had the thinking Calcuttans in a spin at Fulcrum 2012, organised by Pulse in association with The Telegraph at Science City Auditorium, on May 12 and 13. t2 got chatting with Shiv Khera on his ability to make people think and make a change.

Everyone knows about the motivational speaker, author, business consultant Shiv Khera, what about the Shiv Khera before he became all that?

I wasn’t the brightest kid in school. I was a backbencher troubling the frontbencher and eventually I failed in my 10th grade. But then in higher secondary there were only three people who got first division in arts, and I was one of them. So this tells you, where you put your mind and heart into, that’s where you go.

I was into sports always, I used to play polo, horse riding…but again we had coal mines then and when they got nationalised we pretty much came on the streets. I was married when I was 23 and my eldest daughter was born when I was 24. So 1975 I left India and went off to Toronto, and started life again and that’s how it started.

What inspired you to become a motivational speaker?

I go back almost 38 years. I started life washing cars in Canada before moving on to selling life insurance and vacuum cleaners. Later, I went through a programme by Dr Norman Vincent Peale, which literally changed my life. It was the turning point.

Highlighting how our attitude can make or break our lives, how under the same set of circumstances some people break records, while others break themselves... many, many questions came to my mind.

From that day onwards I became a student, an avid reader, got into informal research. Till then I was just a comics reader having hardly read any other book. I started going to libraries, meeting people much wiser than myself and learning from them.

Then putting together the principles that I learnt from people like Dr Peale, keeping in mind that they are principles and not tactics — tactics are manipulative, and principles are foundational — it changed my personal, professional and social life.

Seeing the change in my own life, I felt it was time for me to pay back to society.

I started working as a volunteer in the US jail — the maximum-security prisons.

I started teaching attitude and self-esteem programmes and gradually I took this back to the corporate world. It was around 1992 that I signed Lufthansa as one of my first clients.

What was the basic idea behind writing your first book, You Can Win (1998)?

The book must have been hidden somewhere in me. I started penning the book in 1992-93 and it took me five years to complete the entire manuscript. But my book comes from a perspective of day-to-day situations that people face. Primarily based on the childhood stories that we have all heard from our parents or guardians. If you notice, those messages stick to our mind for the rest of our life.

Further, if we look at the life story of others, people gain inspiration from them. Lance Armstrong who suffered from cancer and then came back to become a seven-time gold medallist in cycling was an instant inspiration for Yuvraj Singh. Such real stories of real people who turned a negative into a positive, does it not motivate us?

So each one becomes an inspiration for the next, and putting it in a very practical and readable manner was what inspired me to write the book.

How would you define the thoughts behind Living with Honour, Freedom is Not Free, You Can Sell?

Living With Honour says it’s better to be honourable than to be honoured. Freedom is Not Free says that if we are not part of the solution, then we are a problem. And the fourth (latest) book You Can Sell says we judge ourselves by our intentions, while the world judges us by our actions. And results are rewarded, efforts are not. Does Sachin Tendulkar always score a century? No. But would all his runs be added together to make a hundred? No. It is the century that will be counted and looked up to always.

People listen to a motivational speaker, get charged for an hour and then head back to their routine. There are hardly a few who are truly inspired to change. Why is that so?

There are some people who implement these things. Pretty much most of them walk away with a 31-day action plan. Research has shown that it takes 31 days of conscious effort to make or break a habit. That means, if one practices something consistently for 31 days, on the 32nd day it does become a habit. Information has been internalised into behavioural change, which is called transformation. Unless the behaviour changes, learning has not taken place, it only remains as information.

Again, research shows that 70 per cent of the information is lost after 48 hours. In school, the teachers always ask the children to revise their lessons that very night. If a lesson is revised twice or thrice within 48 hours, then the retention capacity goes up by 70 per cent. But again, just like our bodies need food everyday, our minds also need positive thoughts everyday.

Why was your political stint so brief? (Shiv Khera stood in the 2004 general elections as an independent candidate from the South Delhi parliamentary constituency, but got only 1 per cent votes. He has also been an active supporter of the anti-reservation movement, specially ‘Youth For Quality’, the movement by medical students of AIIMS in 2006.)

I pulled out around two years ago, because it became too stressful for me both physically and financially. I was not in a position to make it a full-time profession for myself. Though I met some wonderful people in the process who had put a lot of confidence in me. But somewhere I would say I failed. I will not blame anyone — not even the system! It’s just that maybe I couldn’t provide the right kind of leadership that ought to have been, as I could barely sustain myself.

What do you see in store for this country and its youth?

The only hope that I have is that a good leadership comes out of the youth. Unless that happens, we are heading for major challenges. The only solution to this is to get a very strong national leadership in place.

So, what motivates the motivator?

I think it’s the person’s conviction that really carries a person. I mean what motivates people like Anna Hazare, Netaji, Bhagat Singh…you don’t have any outside motivation, neither is it monetary or financial. What motivates the motivator is the belief in what you do. But keep in mind, false belief is also a belief. If I believe I can’t do it then I won’t be able to do it, and if I have the belief that I can, then I will.

Finally, what motivation would you prescribe for Calcutta?

Oh Calcutta (smiles)… I was born in Bihar and would keep coming to Calcutta because we had coal mines in various places. So Calcutta is not new to me from that perspective. But I think what we need in Calcutta is probably some good vitality. We need to see some good infrastructure, we need to get rid of all the poverty around the city. And all this can only take place when the growth that is happening in the business community comes up and for once if the people start taking pride in their performance. They will then hold themselves accountable to higher standards.

Top sellers

You Can Win

[Macmillan India, Rs 365] Khera’s first book, published in 1998. It aimed to inspire positive attitude and personal growth and remains on the best-sellers list till date.

Living With Honour

[Macmillan India, Rs 295] His second book came after a gap of five years and dealt with living an honourable life in a fractured world. An authoritative take, the book became a best-seller within days of its release.

Freedom is not Free

[Macmillan India, Rs 295] This was penned by Khera when he was completely fed-up with the country’s poor state. It is his call to his countrymen to pick up the cudgels to reform society. Published right before his break into the Indian political system.

You Can Sell

[Westland, Rs 275] The latest by Shiv Khera brings forward time-tested principles that would make a successful sales professional.

Sreyoshi Dey
What do Shiv Khera’s books mean to you? Tell t2@abp.in