This document discusses qualities of top achievers and what drives success or failure. It examines several historical figures like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Muhammad and their leadership principles and lasting legacies. Top achievers are said to have clarity of vision, take risks, execute relentlessly, and work with others. Complacency, lack of teamwork, and excuses can lead to failure. The document recommends cultivating thoughts, attitude, faith, perseverance and making a difference to overcome challenges.

1. Qualities of Top Achievers
Assessing achievement by impact

3. “The two most important days in your
life are the day you are born and the
day you find out why.”
~Mark Twain

4. The World Today
Tomorrow will be more
For better or worse

5. A world of contrasts
That speaks to us in the language of
signs – readable only by those who can
see.
“There's none so blind as those who will not listen.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

6. On the one hand…

7. A world of contrasts
That speaks to us in the language of
signs – readable only by those who can
see.
“There's none so blind as those who will not listen.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods7

8.  3 billion live on less than $2.5 per day.
 Tonight more than 1 billion children will go to bed hungry.
 22,000 children die everyday due to poverty
 On this planet 805 million people do not have enough
food to eat.
 More than 750 million of them lack adequate access to
clean drinking water.
Basic Necessities
What is a basic necessity?8

9. 9
This affects us directly and indirectly

10. Source : Planning Commission Report, 200810
Set up vocational training in every school

11.  In 1998, the UN estimated that it would take $40 billion
annually to offer basic education, clean water and
sanitation, reproductive health, and basic health and
nutrition to every person in every developing country.
 That would be about $58 billion today.
What will it take?
Compared to $ 1.406 Trillion on weapons11

12.  The World Food Programme says, “The poor are
hungry and their hunger traps them in poverty.”
 Hunger is the #1 cause of death in the world, killing
more than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis
combined.
Hunger kills
Believe it or not12

13. Graduation Level
Muslims : 3.6%
12th Plan Target : 25% (All India)
National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities
Justice Ranganath Mishra (2004)

14. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/rude-surprise-for-up-farmers/article7130982.ece
14
OVER 30,000 FARMERS COMMITTED SUICIDE FROM 2011-13

15. Happiness doesn’t
cause suicide –
despair does

16.  WWF’s (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Living
Planet Report – 2014, the number of wild animals
in the world has been halved during the last 40
years!
Our Dying Planet?
And that’s only the ones we counted16

18. Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35339475
18

19. 19

20. As on 2015 women are paid 20% less than men for the same work
20

21. On the other hand…

22. Change the definition
Their’s
Our’s

23. Narayanan Krishnan was a top chef in a five-star
hotel, but gave it all up to feed the mentally ill
How many more such examples do you know?
How many more do we need?

24. Azhar Maqsusi

25. Dasrath Manjhi took 22 years to chisel this passage to carve a short route from his village to
the hospital. His wife died because there was no passage and she had to travel 19 Km.
Courage comes in many forms

26.  Is it progress when 75% of the population is short of
food and water?
 Why is it necessary to have legislation and incentives
to do what we know we must?
 What more evidence do we need to see the criticality
of ethical, compassionate, principled leadership?
Social Responsibility?
Because one day we will be held accountable

28. When plunder becomes a way of life for a
group of people living together in society,
they create for themselves in the course of
time, a legal system that authorizes it and a
moral code that glorifies it.
~ Frederic Bastiat
Four Horsemen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbvquHSPJU

30. How do you define achievement?
Big Question?

31. 3 – Top Achievers
What is their impact today?

32. Genghis Khan
1162 – August 18, 1227 (65 years)

33. Genghis Khan’s Empire at its peak – 12.72 M Sqm

34. Alexander the Great – 2 M Sqm

35. Roman Empire at its peak
Roman Empire – 1.7 M Sqm

36. Umayyad Caliphate – 5.8 M Sqm

37.  Strict meritocracy without exception
 Intense physical training & toughness
 Extensive intelligence about opposition
 Speed of communication & Response
 Doing the unexpected – creativity
 Sheer ruthlessness
Leadership Principles
Short term focus

38. What remains today?

40. Clear Simple Goal
(WiiFM)
Resilience
(Builds credibility)
Truth &
Reconciliation
Living by own values

41.  Clarity about core philosophy
 Willingness to live by his values
 Ability to take diverse people along
 Toughness and resilience which inspired others
 Not allowing adversity to poison his thinking
 Magnanimity & Forgiveness to win over opposition
Leadership Principles
Long term focus

42. What remains today?

43. Muhammad‫ﷺ‬
570 – 8, June 632 (62/63 years)

44. “If greatness of purpose, smallness of
means, and astonishing results are the
three criteria of a human genius, who could
dare compare any great man in history with
Muhammad?”
Alphonse de Lamartine,
French poet, writer, politician

45. Living his message
Putting himself on the line
Goal comes first – before personal preferences
Magnanimity and forgiveness
Leadership Principles
A global mission with global concern

46. What remains today?
1.5 billion people across
nations, nationalities, races
and geographies who love
him and believe in him and
accept his message
Even if they have to die because
of that

47. What is his legacy?
 Qur’an and Sunnah – Tawheed & Aakhira
 Forgiveness of Allah to be reflected in forgiveness on earth
 Charity as an act of worship
 Egalitarianism – brotherhood of mankind and faith (Not only Faith)
 A legal system before which there is absolute equality between
Muslim and non-Muslim, rich and poor, powerful and powerless
Justice, Equality, Compassion, Charity

48. What is his legacy?
 Complete equality in rights of people with no distinction between
Muslim and non-Muslim
 Rights for women that they still don’t have in the so-called Free World
 A Constitution (first such document in history) which guarantees
equal rights for everyone irrespective of faith
 An unparalleled example of personal life as a guidance to all mankind
Human Rights, Non-discrimination, Personal Example

49. If you are serious about success
3 – CTS Requirements

50. “Your work is going to fill a large part of
your life, and the only way to be truly
satisfied is to do what you believe is great
work. And the only way to do great work is
to love what you do.”
~ Steve Jobs
Passion

51. “The dangers of life are infinite, and among
them is safety.”
~ Goethe
Risk Taking

52. “I attribute my success to this:
I never gave or took any excuse.”
~ Florence Nightingale
“Success is walking from failure to failure
with no loss of enthusiasm.”
~Winston Churchill
Execution

53. 3 – Drivers of Failure
And their solutions

54. 1. Complacency
People who don’t learn from their history
are condemned to repeat it
Complacency demotes the unaware from risk
takers, to caretakers to undertakers. Staying
hungry is a persistent challenge for the
successful.
~ Dave Anderson

55.  Look in the mirror for mistakes
 Look out of the window to give credit
 Your virtue is not enhanced by someone else’s weakness
 There is not a single instance in history where someone
succeeded entirely on his own, without the help of anyone
2. Not working together
Disagree without being disagreeable

56.  Stop blaming others for your situation
 Analyze what went wrong and create a plan to avoid it
in the future.
 Being objective, even hard, on yourself is the best way
to avoid repeating mistakes.
3. Excuses and blaming
Adversity comes to strengthen

57. 6 – tools to succeed
To face life’s challenges

58. Thoughts

59. Your mind is like a fertile field
It doesn’t care what you plant in it
But it will return to you whatever you
put in it.

60. Attitude

61. Present circumstances
do not decide if you
will succeed or fail.

62. They only decide
where you need to
start.

63. Faith

64. “When you come to the end of the light of
all that you know and are about to step off
into the darkness of the unknown, faith is
knowing that one of two things will
happen. There will be something firm to
stand on or you will be taught how to fly.”
~ Barbara Winters

66. It is the nature of the
extraordinary goal to
inspire extraordinary effort.

67. Perseverance

68. If you fall 7 times, rise
8 times.
~ Chinese proverb

70. It doesn’t matter whether you
lost or won. What matters is
what you stood for.

71. You can make a difference
It made a
difference
to that one

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