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I came up with the story of Sara Blakely the other day. She is the world’s youngest self-made billionaire and the founder of Spanx. In 2012 Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

She shared that the most important secrets of her success were her parents. Her father always encouraged her to “fail”!! Around the table he would ask if she failed today, then he was truly excited if she had, because he knew she was on the path to success.

She insisted that this kind of behavior from her father took away her fear of trying. He cultured success mindset in her from the early age. This mindset led her and her company to grow to the worth of billion dollars.

We can learn a great lesson from her story. We can accept all the failures and shortcomings and still be okay. We can develop different kind of mindsets to truly live our life.

Conditions are the circumstances that we encounter during the process. Decisions are the choice we make at every conditions.

The most important thing is that our conditions does not determines our life; it does not define us.

It is our decisions that determines us not the conditions.

Our principles is our guidance. It is the rule to live our life in our own way. We can’t do too much without figuring out the principles.

Everybody has their own principles to live their life. Our principles might change at different stages of life. But, it will not deviate from our core purpose.

Most importantly, if we’ve the principle figured out, it’s easier to take any decisions based on that principle as we don’t have too many options.\

Sticking to our principles help us become accountable, credible, efficient and successful.

It lies in the simplicity. The most orthodox concept is the most powerful concept. It might not be famous but it has driven the whole world.

They are not the same. Greatness has nothing to do with being famous.

The goal for getting either of one or both is acceptable but it's not obvious to reach those. Being great has its own path and so does the fame.

They are never the same. Greatness has its own genius and ingredient and famous has its own. They should not be misunderstood.

Waiting till last moment to get things done might be painful sometimes.

Because of the time boundary and the pressure to get it done, performance will be directly impacted and hence the quality of the result.

The solution?

Start early. Don't wait for the last moment.

When you are executing to build a great company, "who" you have in the team is more important that "what" direction are you going or "what" product you are going make. That's why right people with right mindset is crucial while building a innovative and long-lasting company.

You can't step twice on the same water. Likewise, world is dynamic. When you begin with "who" rather than "what" you can easily adapt to the dynamic world.

Jim Collins in his book "Good to Great" argues that Good to Great company first get right people on the bus then figure out where to drive.

If you join a bus primarily because of where it's going you might be in problem because the people inside might want to go to different direction or want to change their mind.

But if you join a bus because of "who" else is on the bus then if you need to change the direction, it will be fine with everybody and it's going to have an infinite journey. It's because the right people will be self motivated by the inner drive to produce great results.

Be in the journey not because of the destination or the direction but because of "who" else is in the bus.

Most often we celebrate our past success. We live in the fantasy of the things we achieved in the past. We think that our success is what defines us; it is what makes us grow.

Does celebrating our past success makes us grow? Does it help us in any way?

Yes, of course, it enhances our courage and confidences. But, it is not the success that defines us or makes us grow. Instead, it is our sufferings and pains that make us grow. It is our grit and and the ability to tackle the failures that defines us. How we deal with the problem is what defines us.

But here is the punchline: The celebration of our past successes and achievements de-emphasize our future.

We must navigate our future instead of spending time by celebrating the past deeds.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

So our future technology should focus on the costumers needs and desire. Fulfilling the needs of consumers should be the first criteria of all the business and ventures.

Its not only about the words or promises every business organization give; it’s not also about what we did or how we did. None of them matters.

It’s about how our products, our services and our initiation made them feel that matters.

To win a war we most win many- many battles. But in this battle of life, the greatest enemy are not the real enemies, but ourselves. As we’ll know how we are pulling ourselves from our next move.

Because of the fear of losing, we are holding our-self back from our action.  We rely too much on other’s perspective of ourselves and seek others approval not realizing that the greatest approval is self-approval. We are abiding own-self from it.

So, our greatest enemy is our SELF.