Geet Sethi, who has won dozens of professional world-class championships and set world records in billiards and snooker. In an interview with India Knowledge@Wharton, Sethi discusses the foundation being laid by India -- physically and psychologically -- to reach new levels of success in sporting competitions. Sethi is also the author of Success vs. Joy and a founder of Olympic Gold Quest, a non-government organization that funds India's Olympic medal hopefuls. The interview took place during the recent Wharton India Economic Forum in Philadelphia.
Interview
India Knowledge@Wharton: Thanks very much for joining us today. I want to ask you about a topic you have discussed before, which is the importance of dignity. You also have spoken about the need to have a subconscious belief in oneself -- which is, as you put it, a foundation for success in sport. Can you talk about those characteristics, and then maybe about how they apply to business?
Geet Sethi: Yes. I think for a country which was starved of sporting success, India has had a very defeatist attitude. And taking an example from my own sport of billiards: In 1956, Wilson Jones won India its first world title in any sport, and that was billiards. He won one more world title, retired, and then a gentleman named Michael Ferreira came on the scene.
Now, [Ferreira] had played against Wilson Jones. He had almost beaten him, but not quite, and he said, "If Wilson Jones can win a world title, I have almost beaten him, so perhaps I am world-title material, too." And then one day he beat Wilson Jones in a club level tournament and he said, "Yes, I can be that world champion." ... He then won three world billiard titles. I played him in the nationals, defeated him and won eight world billiard titles after that.
Now we have this young kid, Pankaj Advani, who is not yet 25, and he has already won six world billiard titles. That is the power of this self-conscious self-belief, and I do believe that it is true in every field of human endeavor. So, India is poised at the moment to do great things. Abhinav Bindra has just won us an Olympic gold [medal] in shooting. Prior to this, [during] the last Olympics, Rajyavardhan Rathore won us a silver in shooting and, in fact, in one of the programs that I was speaking on, I said, "I believe we are now ready to get a Olympic gold in shooting" -- and sure enough, we did. I think by the next Olympics, we will get back five golds, and it is the power of this subconscious belief, undoubtedly so.
