Hi Top 30 Under 30! Many congratulations, it’s lovely to see that the industry has a lot of youngsters and you’re our hope, and this is not to say that we’re putting the burden of the future on you. No, you’ve to be relaxed and be in a position to play your shots, the way you want to play your shots. Nobody is putting pressure on you, but yes, we are hoping that a lot of good things will come out of you people and many like you, who may not be in this list of 30.
I want to have chat with you and we’re going to have fun and games - you are the fun and I’ll talk about games. Now, I’ll tell you a story and you are all smart people, you’ll read between the lines. Many years back, there used to be a tournament in cricket - I said I’d talk about games so, here’s cricket for you! It was the ‘Under 22’ tournament and no Ranji Trophy players could play in that, only youngsters under 22. So that was younger than 30, as you guys are today. Lots of us played that tournament - and lots of us played that tournament well - and some of us (not me) made it to play for India. Out of these youngsters, a lad called Kapil Dev, a gentleman called Roger Binny, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sandeep Patil and Arun Lal - they all went on and played for India. But some of us didn’t as some of us did not realise that you had played well at a platform, but you were at the stage of a newcomer at the next level, so you did not succeed. The moral of the story is very simple – it is that you have been identified for larger things, you have been noticed for your potential, but this is not a kind of destination. This is like you’ve been given a seat on this lovely train, which is going to discover its own destinations. I’ve seen a number of people, who won one award somewhere, and we didn’t even hear about them after that. That’s sad because, of course, there was talent, but either there was bad luck or it was that recognition went to their heads. I don’t want recognition to go to your heads, there should be a fantastic sense of confidence to say, “Hello, I have it in me!” There are many fathers of the line, “If you think you can, you can”. I went through a lot of homework this morning, so, there’s Mary Kay Ash, Henry Ford, there was a famous athlete, Paddock, whose character was played in ‘Chariots of Fire’… but it doesn’t matter who wrote it, the line had meaning and has meaning today. Here, the industry is saying you can, so the years ahead will prove that you really can and that will come from your internalising that you have it in you.
Since we’ve said we’ll talk about games, one more thing - we all admire big time cricketers, tennis players and all kinds of sportspeople around the world, but we’ve got to remember what goes behind it. We only see those finals of Wimbledon, we only see a World Cup final in cricket, we only see some fantastic matches in football. But these people get up, they do body training in the morning - rigorous and maddening, as they are competing at the highest level. Then they go and practise, not just with bowling machines or tennis sub-machines, they play with people. Then they play lesser tournaments, to get used to the game, and then they play at the highest level. Your routine has got to be the same - your routine is to open your eyes in the morning, look around you, clean your ears, hear the sounds, open your heart and let everything sink in. Don’t be a statistic, I hear a lot of data stuff these days – a lot of it is bullshit, mark my words. This morning’s paper says, “The most valuable player in the history of Test cricket… at No.2 is Ravindra Jadeja. So much for data and data analysis, you don’t want to be that data part, you want to be a champion of all times that the world says, “No, he or she is not based on statistics of being Top 30 Under 30, he or she is great amongst the greatest”.
So welcome to the world of advertising. You are the rising stars but we would like to see you as huge planets as you go ahead. All the very best. Remember, this is only one lap of a very long race and I’m sure that some of you are going to win the race and set world records like none of us has to date. Cheers and God bless you all.
