My thanks!

On my journey to figure out how to help people achieve greater success, I’ve have been lucky to receive wise counsel and insights from a long (and growing) list of experts, family and friends. They offered their shoulders so I 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 thinking is undeniable.  To all these people I give my thanks…

  • K.R.Venkatachalam – my late father. He was my ROCK and still is. It’s been over 25 years since his passing but he is still my source of strength. He had high standards and made sure I kept reaching higher.  When I called my Dad about getting into MIT and three Ivy League schools, his response was “What took you so long?”
  • Anushka, my daughter. She has lived with me through my boom days and my bust days. She has been my steady rock throughout, even when was young. Today, at 22, she’s already been to all seven continents and to 45 countries, lived in China for a summer, studied in Singapore for a semester and worked at NASA for a year. Raising her has made me grow up… fast!
  • Richard Guha, a good friend and former CEO of Alliant Energy. He has reminding me about my special abilities since he was an advisor to an early startup of mine.
  • Seth Rao, a good friend who constantly harangued me to focus on the business aspects of anything I did. Between him and Richard, I still get the ‘blunt talk’!
  • Vishy Srinivasan.  Vishy is a friend, business partner and counselor who blazed many trails in his career.  He is now allegedly retired but is still quietly (his style) advising startups.
  • 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.
  • 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 the role model for character Wendy Rhoades).  Denise 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 studied.
  • Rob Slee.  Here is a man that is hidden away in Charlotte, North Carolina who 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.
  • 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 re-framed many a situation as I collected the knowledge that went into this endeavor.
  • Perry Marshall 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