The road to success is diverse and can take many directions.  One interesting path that a well known Asian CEO has found to reach success is silence.  Vijay Eswaran is the CEO of QI Group, a $1 billion conglomerate.  Although most people would not recognize his name in the USA, he is well known in Asia.  This Indian born Malaysian citizen has reached an enviable level of success, taking his company from launch to the billion dollar mark in just 10 years.

So what exactly does silence have to do with success?  Eswaran attributes his success to his practice of reflecting in silence for an hour everyday.  According to him, you should start your day by analyzing the goals that you have set, what you have achieved and what you have failed to achieve, and try to derive lessons from this reflection.  From there you should start making plans for the day ahead and beyond.  Here is how he explains the significance of this exercise:

“There is a Chinese saying that goes: ‘A beggar lives meal to meal.  A peasant lives day to day.  A farmer lives season to season.  A nobleman lives year to year.  A king lives 10 years at a time, but an emperor lives a century at a time.’  How much of what we do today counts in a month or six months?  The point is to go deeper.”

Here are the keys to the practice of silence:

• The best time is early in the morning, but if that does not work for you find another time that fits your schedule.  What is most important is to do it consistently.
• The reflection should be done in total silence for about an hour, with no interruptions.
• Analyze the day before, where you have fallen short of your goals, and learn from what you may have done wrong.
• Plan your short-term goals for the upcoming days.
• Then reflect on the long-term goals, for the next year and beyond.
• Read a book or other source of knowledge for 10 minutes and summarize what was learned.
• Spend 10 minutes on spirituality, working on questions of the heart that need answers.
• Keep doing it.  Once you get started you will not want to stop.

So what exactly has Eswaran gained from this practice that has helped him as a CEO?  Read carefully what he has to say:

“It happens every day.  You look at problems in 3-D because of the depth.  I walk into meetings with a new armory of information that looks like it is coming off the cuff.  It is like practicing before you play the game.  That’s all it does.  It makes me better.  I’m mentally fit, I’m faster on the uptake.”

Do you see similarities to the concepts explained in The Art of Learning?  It seems that Eswaran has internalized his goals and the lessons of his failures so deep that he can perform in free flow.  Numbers to leave numbers.  Small circles.  Slowing down time.  If you are not familiar with these concepts I would encourage you to read Josh Waitzkin’s book The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence.

 

All of these concepts of success seem to intersect whether you are competing for the World Championship in Chess or Tai Chi, as in the case of Josh Waitzkin, or whether you are performing in the competitive business world as the CEO of a large conglomerate, as Vijay Eswaran does.  The more you learn about the elements of successful performance the more you will find common threads that you can use in your own search for success.