As part of our relentless efforts to identify and share some of the meaningful stories from India and around the world, this weekend we invited Dr Sanjay Kumar Agarwal for an interview with us, popularly known among his fans & followers across the globe as ‘Time & Goal Guru’, is an Author, GOPTA NLP Trainer, Growth Accelerator Coach and a Strategic Interventionist. He is the creator of his trademark concept ‘GOPTA’ and he has done fusion of GOPTA with NLP and Communicative Intelligence under the brand name ‘GOPTA NLP’.
He is a Government Employee- turned-Entrepreneur. He has worked for the Government of India in the Ministry of Finance for more than 25 years and took voluntary retirement under the age of 50 to follow his passion.
He has authored the famous books titled ‘How to Add 1000 Productive Hours A Year To Your Life’ (in English & Hindi both) and ‘Sleep – It’s Body Repair Time’.
He is the recipient of Honorary Doctorate of Excellence (Management) by prestigious Young Scientist University, California, USA. He is the founder of International GOPTA NLP Academy (I.G.N.A.).
His signature workshops ‘Ethical Mind Influence’ & ‘Influencing Communications’ help you to grow at a faster pace towards your goals. He also conducts workshops on ‘Time Management’, ‘Goals Achievement’, ‘Sleep’, ‘Communicative Intelligence’, ‘Influencing Leadership’, ‘Maintaining Balance Among Different Walks of Life’ etc.
He is also Executive Editor at ICN Digital Media and his articles at their platform are read & liked in more than 150 countries at ICN Platforms. Let’s learn more about his insights and his journey this far!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with him:
Talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur/coach, please;
I was born & brought up in Lucknow. I am a Commerce Post Graduate from Lucknow University of 1985-87 batch. I have worked for more than 25 years for Government of India in the Ministry of Finance before deciding to call it a day under the age of 50 to pursue my passion to work upon the mindset of people.
Please brief our readers about GOPTA.
G.O.P.T.A.® is an acronym given by me to ‘Goals Oriented Positive Thinking & Actions’. While studying success from various sources, I learnt so many ingredients of success out of which I personally identified 3 ingredients, on which you can’t afford to be even 99% if you want to achieve huge success in life. And for the sake of easiness in remembering these 3 ingredients, I created an acronym and that acronym is G.O.P.T.A., which means ‘Goals Oriented Positive Thinking & Actions’.
Thus, GOPTA has the following 3 limbs:
1 – GOALS ORIENTED: If you are goals oriented, your every thought, every – action & every time utilization pattern will be in the direction of achieving your goals; and you will inculcate the habit of asking yourself that ‘whatever I am doing right now is the most appropriate usage of my time or not’.
2 – POSITIVE THINKING: If you possess positive thinking, you will impregnate your subconscious mind with positive beliefs & positive attitude and inculcate positive values and habits to speed up the journey towards your goals. You will guard your self-image against the leg-pulling comments of others and will not allow others to tell you what you are capable of doing.
3 – ACTIONS: Apart from the old definition of actions as taking disciplined & persistent actions on a daily basis in the direction of your goals, my definition of actions is to take action upon yourself. For example, learning goals-oriented skills, inculcating goals-oriented habits, inculcating goals-oriented values, practising goals-oriented time utilization patterns, and building goals oriented relationships.
This is the reason why I always say that GOPTA is essential for success. If you want success in life, you can’t afford to ignore any of the above three limbs of GOPTA.
And what is GOPTA NLP?
I have done fusion of my work GOPTA with the concepts of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and with various other communicative intelligence modalities provided by researchers over a period of time and I am presenting this fusion work before you in the name & style of ‘GOPTA NLP’. While GOPTA provides you with the thought process of remaining goals oriented and possess positive outlook while taking persistent actions towards your goals; NLP equips you with methodologies & techniques to enhance the speed of your journey to your desired outcomes. Communicative Intelligence enriches your communications in personal & professional lives. As such, it is an ultimate recipe of growth.
How GOPTA NLP solves the challenges faced by humans in general?
Good question. The sole motive behind whatever I do today is to empower people to grow in their personal & professional lives by working on all crucial facets of their life.
I believe that poor communication skills are the biggest cause of spoiled inter-personal relationships whether in personal lives or professional lives. We all want to guide the conversations to our advantage though most of the people are not able to make their words properly landed in the mind of the other person.
Similarly, we must have clearly defined goals (well-formed outcomes) and a strategy to achieve them. And in the process, we have to effectively utilize our time towards achieving those goals.
And if we are able to manage all these 3 facets of growth triangle while maintaining balance among different walks of life, this growth & success turns into inner happiness & joy.
Why did you choose entrepreneurship over the security of your Government job with Customs & Central Excise Department?
As I always say you have to follow your passion and life mission. I was doing good in the job and won many awards & rewards, still, I was not contributing to the lives of others.
As a keen observer of life and a researcher in success, I found that most of the people are suffering from 1 or more of the above mentioned 3 challenges hurting balance among different walks of life and resulting into poor client conversion or retention. It is causing huge damage to them in personal & professional lives.
I believe that to grab the attention of your audience, it is necessary to have one novel idea for the ultimate benefit of your target audience. When I tested GOPTA on this criterion, I found that everybody needs this.
So, I decided to work on these areas. First, I researched & researched and then I did a fusion of my trademark concept GOPTA with the time-tested concepts of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Communicative Intelligence and created this ultimate growth model, ‘GOPTA NLP’.
Please share with us some of the challenges you faced in your journey as the creator of GOPTA and then doing the fusion as GOPTA NLP.
Every success story has at least 5 years of dedicated passionate work behind it. I also have worked passionately for 15 years by now.
Obviously, the journey was not that simple as looks now. Today, I am a much sought-after speaker and read across the globe. Starting was not smooth. There was a time when I used to think twice even before giving a minimum guarantee of 25-30 and it was difficult to fill the room with the audience. Today, the scenario is quite the opposite. I declare the workshop and the seats are grabbed instantly.
No doubt, there were lessons to be learnt. I took those lessons and worked upon my marketing skills. I worked upon building my strong foundation. I created the spiral of trust by delivering value to my participants who gradually became my main source of referrals and bringing new participants to my workshops. To summarize, huge success is not an overnight process, though it seems to be.
My core area is to make people identify their core strengths and work around those core strengths. It works wonders for them.
What excites you being in this training world?
Helping others to grow in their personal & professional lives. It is my passion. Simple. How can I express my feelings when I could elevate the life state of people and improve their bottom lines? It is an opportunity to work with those who are seeking growth and improvement in relationships. And it is fascinating.
We have heard that you are the Founder of International GOPTA NLP Academy. Please tell our readers something about this and about your future plans.
When it comes to growth, happiness & joy, I think globally. Why this ultimate growth model should remain restricted to India only?
International GOPTA NLP Academy is created with the mission of spreading ‘GOPTA NLP Framework’ across the globe. From the next year, we will also offer franchisee of this unique concept so that the trainers from across the globe can come to India to learn this unique concept and enable their countrymen with this growth model under certification by International GOPTA NLP Academy.
Till now, we used to go to other countries. Now trainers from across the globe will come to India and get trained with this growth model. Fascinating to me.
Please tell our readers about your books, namely ‘How to Add 1000 Productive Hours to Your Life’ and ‘Sleep – It’s Body Repair Time’ and your experience being an Author?
As an author, if anybody starts thinking that the book will be published and become best-seller overnight, it does not happen to all. It happens to only a few authors. Though, if your content is transformative and there is something fresh, you get the attention of the target market.
‘How to Add 1000 Productive Hours a Year to Your Life’ deals with effective time utilisation and goals orientation. It describes GOPTA in detail. ‘Sleep – It’s Body Repair Time’ deals with improving sleep patterns by doing little fine-tuning in sleep-related habits.
As GOPTA framework was created by me and it is an ultimate & transformative growth model, it caught fancy of the audience over a period of time. Earlier, I was in self-publishing mode and now one of the largest publishing houses of India, namely, Prabhat Prakashan have published both of these books in English & Hindi both under traditional publishing method.
Now, my 8 books are in pipeline. The feeling is obviously fantastic.
What has worked well for you so far and what gives you joy?
My passion for guiding others to grow in their personal & professional lives. This gives me energy. Often people ask me how you are so energetic at the age of 53. My Facebook wall is flooded with these types of comments. I always say that it is my inner passion which gives me kick and joy both. It has worked well for me so far and I believe that in future also, this will give me an inner kick to follow my passion.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
As I already discussed, GOPTA NLP Framework is the recipe of growth & success. Maintaining a reasonable balance among different walks of life and unlocking your own true potential is important in life.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
Adopt GOPTA in your thought process. Work upon yourself. Always be goals oriented and take appropriate actions at the appropriate time. Work on your communications. That’s it.
The biggest thing, believe yourself and don’t allow anybody else to tell you what you are capable of doing and what you are not capable of doing.
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