On my journey to unearth the key success factors in business and how to help people achieve greater business success, we have been lucky to receive wise counsel and insights from a long (and growing) list of experts, bloggers and friends – giants who offered their shoulders so we could reach higher and go farther.  I have worked directly with many of them and know others from their work.  Some of them are still alive and a few have passed, but their impact on my growth and our thinking is unmistakable.  Some know the contribution they made to my learning and growth while others do not.  To all these people I give my thanks…

Thank You!

• K.R.Venkatachalam – my late father who was the first to finish high school in his family and went on to get two bachelors and a masters.  He supported my mother so she could finish high school and go on to get two bachelors degrees.  When I called my Dad about getting into MIT and three Ivy League schools, his response was “What took you so long?”
• Richard Guha, a good friend and former CEO of Alliant Energy. He has been pounding the importance of business thinking since he was an advisor to my last startup. When I called him recently, he reminded me again!
• Seth Rao, a good friend who constantly harangued me to focus on the business aspects of anything I did. Between him and Richard, I got the ‘blunt talk’!
• Anthony Robbins.  He is one man who took knowledge from the best minds and distilled them for everyday people to use.  He has transformed millions of lives and he did mine.
• Shane Parrish (Farnam Street Blog).  His weekly newsletters have been a bonanza for my ‘connect the dots’ mind, giving me rich knowledge from books that I would have never pickup up in the library or the bookstore.
• David Caruso.  David is a renowned expert with an excellent understanding of emotional intelligence.  He has been helpful and easy to talk to.
• Denise Shull (consultant to ‘Billions’ on Showtime and model for character Wendy Rhoades).  Wendy pointed out what was obvious once stated, about the biggest motivators that drives the behavior of stock brokers and hedge fund traders that shone the light in many other professions I am looking at.
• Rob Slee.  Here is a man that is hidden away in Charlotte, North Carolina that needs to be given a bigger megaphone.  Rob is very insightful about the psychology of business owners across the globe – he’s an expert on mergers and acquisitions in the privately owned business space and has personally owned about 45 companies.
• Don Huizenga.  Here’s a wise man who has seen many a CEO, investment banker and banker.  Don was the head of the midmarket CEO group at the Conference Board and the President of the World Foundry Society.
• Vishy Srinivasan.  Vishy is a friend, business partner and counselor who blazed many trails in his career.  He is now quietly (his style) advising startups.
• Tim Davis is a former standup comedian and New York City cabbie who is an incredible reader of people and expert at Socratic questioning and reasoning.  He has reframed many a situation as I collected the knowledge that went into this endeavor.
• Perry Marshall.  Here is a man who saw the obvious but had a very different take on the Pareto Principle, helping illustrate how it is useful in all walks of life if you want to work smartly on the significant few things and ignore the trivial many.

– Ram V. Iyer