As part of our endeavor to identify and share some of the unique and compelling stories from India and around the world, we invited Neeloy Roy Chowdhury for an interview with us to understand more about his inspiring journey so far. He is an Author, Coach and Mentor. Let’s learn more about his journey and advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Neeloy:
We are aware of your contributions to the ecosystem; talk us through your background and your journey, please;
I am a Mechanical Engineer and MBA by profession. I have more than 23 years of Technology sales, business development, and marketing experience across many customer verticals and geographies.
I have handled a plethora of IT, Telecom, Healthcare, and Agri-Tech products, services, and solutions across a wide variety of industry sectors including BFSI, Telecom, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Media, E-Commerce Energy, Education, and Retail. I have been fortunate to interact with customers, partners, and other key stakeholders across the Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Americas
I am also passionate about mental health and wellbeing, as well as coaching and mentoring.
What made you passionate about ‘Coaching’?
From childhood, I have enjoyed sharing and guiding others with my limited experiences and learnings. I was the quintessential big brother for my friends, family, colleagues, and others.
Having been through many life-changing personal and professional experiences and interactions with people across the globe, I feel the best way to show gratitude to God is to guide others and share learnings. Although everyone has their own journey and their share of learnings, falls, and grows: the least we can do is provide perspectives and points to ponder over. God helps those who help themselves and everyone can make a difference around us.
Somehow with due respect to the formal word “Coach”, we are all subconscious coaches to our family and friends: we just need to do this more consciously and with a view of learning and growing together. We are after all social animals!
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
My Debut book talks about that, I feel challenged and a bit of negativity does spur us on to greater heights and gives us the extra impetus, planning, drive, motivation, urgency, and attention to detail.
Turning challenges, castigation, and rebuke to positive outcomes is the ethos of my book and life. There is no situation that cannot be handled. Challenges need to be accepted, analyzed, and actioned upon with acceptance or acting towards outcomes.
Tough times: bring them on!
Do our best and God will do the rest!
Try and we may fail, we don’t try and we will surely fail
If we succeed, we earn, if we fail, we learn
And for those rare moments of success, let’s celebrate them to the fullest so that we could cherish and replay the feeling during our usual challenges, downtimes, and daily grinds.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
My daughter, my best friend, and the whole journey of life have been the biggest sources of motivation. While the 1st 2 factors are personal, I feel life has to be enjoyed and lived to its fullest in its journey more than the destination. In good times we earn and in bad times we learn.
I have been fortunate enough to see a lot of positives and negatives and have transformed from a happy-go-lucky frivolous person to a more resilient, tough, unfazed character who has restarted and rebooted his life many times over.
Life, its unpredictability, experiences, and the wonderful people that come in our paths have continuously motivated me.
What are some of the strategies that you believe have helped you grow as a person?
1) Never straying away from my values and principles
2) Giving the least and expecting the least
3) Always trying, learning, unlearning, and relearning
4) Listening vs speaking
5) Putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes
6) Taking ownership and accountability
7) Having manageable negative emotions for contingency planning
8) Under committing and over-delivering
9) Solution vs Problem mindset
10) Giving thanks to God for His infinite grace
You are always positive and motivated, what keeps you going?
My motivation comes from a combination of positive and negative. I feel the journey is as important if not more important than the destination.
Aiming for major successes and goals is fine, and I try to additionally grab my moments of happiness from daily activities, and the small moments of joy.
In addition to my daughter and best friend, football – especially the games of Zinedine Zidane, working out and the 80s music keeps me recharged and motivated.
In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
I will say it straight that there are many factors but if you really have to have the key elements then to me these are the ones:
(a) It’s never too late to change
(b) Ownership
(c) Listening
(d) Asking and curiosity
(e) Facing the reality
(f) Empathy
(g) Standing by our morals and values
(h) Embracing negative to be positive
(i) Ability to reboot and restart at any point in life
What advice would you give students and young professionals who want to have a successful career?
Earning may or may not bring about learning. But Learning will most certainly bring about earning.
At the start of your career, look for opportunities that involve vast amounts of learning, challenges, responsibilities. Do not hesitate to experiment, ask questions. Give any task your best shot and that little extra. Have an open mind, don’t assume but always be curious and ask.
In a few years, remuneration or salaries will all even out but what will make you stand out are the following:
~ Doing what you love: will mean loving what you do
~ Maximising experiences and learning across functional and life skills
~ Ability to handle black swan- COVID like events
I shall be happy to share more details on a 1:1 basis in case of any specific questions or advice.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
