Dream with Your Eyes Open Quotes

“If everyone is thinking alike,’ General George Patton said, ‘then somebody isn’t thinking.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“I am too busy working on my own grass to notice if yours is greener.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“16,000. That’s how many words the average human speaks a day.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“General George Patton once said, ‘No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won by making the other dumb bastard die for his.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Entrepreneurship is a journey, not an outing. You cannot make a deal with yourself by saying, ‘I’m going to try this out for two years and see.’ Entrepreneurship is about living life on your own terms. Dream huge. And when you do, dream with your eyes open.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Communication is a form of currency. And how you choose to use it—the speed at which you understand things, your clarity of thought, and your ability to deliver a strong message, so the audience has no doubt who is leading the show—can boost or burn your business.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Entrepreneurship is a journey, not an outing.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Entrepreneurship in a nutshell: action and reaction; understanding, confronting and transcending fear; working, disrupting and succeeding; trying and failing. And then laughing about it all later, while absorbing lasting life lessons.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“You don’t have to be the fastest wildebeest to survive. You just never want to be the slowest.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“My childhood at Grant Road, next to Novelty Cinema, was lower-middle-class—we weren’t wealthy, but we had what we needed. We lived in an apartment situated on the first floor of the five-storey Arsiwalla building, nearly a century old and in constant need of repair. It had one long corridor with three rooms that held my brother, parents, two aunts and grandparents. The apartment’s sleeping area was indistinguishable from its other rooms. I recall begging family members to switch with me so their bedroom could become the de facto living room for a while. I lived there until the age of sixteen, privileged enough to go to a school where most of my classmates came in cars while I waited forty-five minutes for the B.E.S.T. bus to arrive.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“In the 1970s, Mumbai (then Bombay) was a whirl of motion, noise and colour. A million kirana stores lined the streets (this hasn’t changed much), with honking Ambassador cars, trolley buses and autos jockeying with cycles for space on the narrow roads. There was music, art, literature. People with big ideas and hopes for the future. Then, as now, the city was a crucible for a young entrepreneur with a dream. As a boy, I soaked in every aspect of vibrant Mumbai like my life depended on it. Back then, India was much more a manufacturing and agricultural economy, and I paid special attention to the economics of business—how family businesses”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Five years from now, though, do you want to be doing exactly what you’re doing today? Most”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“The only question you need to answer is: When I fail, how will I respond?”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“The difference between predator and prey in a business ecosystem is determined by the strength of one’s next idea.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Life moves on. We tend to duck the unpopular, hard decisions, not realizing that eventually when the results are out, we’re not going to be popular anyway.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Fear and uncertainty, when things are not going as planned, are natural, but this is also when your convictions are truly tested. Generally, the difference between success and failure is about staying the course.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Team-building is critical at all times, but even more so when you’re not involved hands-on. Not everyone you bring on board will perform at peak capacity from day one, some take a while to get into their roles. But as a leader, you need to give each individual a clear mandate, the freedom to operate and make mistakes, and unstinted support. Treat your team members like colleagues and not employees. Then watch them shine. I say this not because it’s a great HR exercise, but because that’s the reality guiding a successful business.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts…”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“failure can be a stronger motivator than success.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“As a professional, a leader or an entrepreneur, there will be times in your career when you’ll be an outsider, either because you have changed sectors or jobs, or started a new business where full domain knowledge is not your core strength. Embrace this status, be a quick learner and an even sharper listener. ♦ Build a team that complements yet challenges you, and hones your skill sets, and get them aligned with the big picture sooner rather than later. ♦ I’m often asked about the keys to success as an outsider. The irony, I say, is that the raw material for any entrepreneur or leader to make an impact as an outsider comes from within. It’s a lesson I have learnt and relearnt every day in the two decades I spent in the media and entertainment business.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“So it’s refreshing (and disappointingly rare) when someone actually listens and waits for others to finish, and crafts an intelligent, thoughtful response based on what had just been conveyed. It makes people feel respected. This guy is really listening because he has noted all the small points and has come back on them.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Research and homework are vital, but deep knowledge comes from doing, from getting your hands dirty and from asking the questions others are too afraid or embarrassed to ask.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Risk isn’t about going headlong into situations where the outcome can’t be predicted. That’s just foolish behaviour. Risk means pushing the envelope when others want to take the safe route. Risk means caring more about potential rewards than possible losses. To separate yourself from the crowd, think through the worst-case scenarios as possibilities. If a worst-case scenario does become a reality, be just as willing to move on to bigger and better things.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Insulating yourself against failure doesn’t ensure success; it only makes success more elusive. Plan for failure. Embrace failure. Tomorrow will still be there, no matter how dire today feels.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Failure never stopped anybody who didn’t want to be stopped.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Risk isn’t about rushing headlong into uncertain situations. That’s just foolish behaviour. Risk means pushing the envelope when others want to take the safe route, and caring more about potential rewards than possible losses.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“your focus on creating a brand is a critical step on the journey to scale. This is not an easy task, and far more complex than the common view would have it—that brand-building requires little more than spending on marketing. But once you create a brand that stands for something, speaks of its own standards, has recall value with a large consumer base and brings credibility to your service or product, it can be a great inflection point for your company.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“To sell the concept of cable TV, we set up hundreds of demos in building lobbies across the city, bringing residents their first taste of technology and choice in content. Over the next twelve months, we did over 1,000 demos and more than 3,000 door-to-door visits before we got our first connection.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Culture is the lifeblood of successful endeavours. Everything you do and everywhere you go creates opportunities to communicate in impactful ways. Great communication becomes a part of a company’s culture. The more deeply it’s embedded, the larger the company grows. The larger the company grows, the deeper the culture.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY

“Dreaming with your eyes open means being alert to challenges but refusing to let them stop you.”
― Ronnie Screwvala, DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN: AN ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY