Believe in yourself, otherwise you'll be like a kite, just drifted by the wind, directionless."
These thoughtful lines have been shared by one of the most inspirational figures of India, Rashmi Bansal, who visited the XIM, Bhubaneswar campus with the initiative of X-SEED, the XIMB’s entrepreneurship development cell. A writer, entrepreneur, motivator, Bansal started off the talk in the same way as she does in her books, straight to the point, in the simplest yet inspiring manner.
“living life in a different way” -- with the message of beginning a career in entrepreneurship, she shared how living without a passion makes it “mundane” and “dissatisfied”. Striking on the intriguing question of “Are entrepreneurs born or made”, she observed that it can be both ways. There are “The Believers” who simply take the call because they feel so and then there are “The Opportunists”, who just seize the opportunities.
Throwing some light on why one should take entrepreneurship, Bansal quoted Narendra Murkumbi of Shree Ram Sugars "I want to be an entrepreneur not for money but because I want to create something." She exemplified her talk taking cues from her own life, how living in a colony of scientists, she chose a course of BA and finally took the path of writing despite family oppositions.
Giving numerous real life examples of B-School graduates and successful entrepreneurs, she briefed that the time in college and B-school is the golden period when one can think of a self-sustaining idea of business and follow it once you get to the real world. As Raghuvendra Rao of Orchid Pharma Opportunists had mentioned, "If I can make other companies grow, why not start my ownIJ" She finally concluded the talk saying, "Start small, but dream big.” She quoted author Napoleon Hill "Whatever the mind can conceive, believe, the mind can." She left the students all thinking that maybe the sky is not their limits, and maybe they can build their own sky and reach for that.