Recently, photos of Ratan Tata celebrating his birthday with his millennial friend Shantanu Naidu were trending all over the internet. Soon after, people were curiously searching to see who this ‘curly haired individual’ was. Shantanu Naidu is Ratan Tata’s business assistant, and is an extremely bright and talented individual who’s proving to be somewhat of a role model for youngsters in our country.
Initially Naidu had joined Tata Elxsi as a junior design engineer, and after a while, he went to study at Cornell University, in the US and returned to work as Mr. Ratan Tata’s assistant. And, Shantanu is the reason that Ratan Tata has such a flourishing social media presence, at the moment. It is because of his input, that the 84-year-old’s Instagram page has 5 million followers.
Additionally, Naidu is also responsible for starting and successfully running Motopaws – an animal welfare initiative that creates ‘glow-in-the-dark’ collars’ to make them visible from a distance. So, at this point, it is very clear why he’s such an inspiring individual. And why any advice he has to offer is probably out of solid experience & wisdom. Like this web talk that he delivered in collaboration with TEDx. It is quite literally a gold mine of advice for budding entrepreneurs.
In this talk, he talked about the importance of listening to your ‘tingles.’ Especially, when it comes to starting a business. Naidu talked about following your gut instinct and not letting self doubt become a roadblock, especially if you’re on the lookout for a good business idea.
And then he went on to talk about how, as an entrepreneur, it’s vital to set your ego aside when faced with constructive criticism or rejection. Because this will only help you grow and find the right business idea for you.
You can watch the whole video here.
He deserves all the applause in the world!