How Founders Can Use Mentors and Coaches Effectively w/ Vikas Arora | Microsoft for Startups

 00:00
Vikas Arora
Repetition, consistency, dedication, the keys to success.

00:04
Amardeep Parmar
That's Vikas Arora on the Microsoft for Startups program and a startup success manager.

00:10
Vikas Arora
Your role as a coach is simple. You're not there to be prescriptive. You're not their teacher. You're there to paint the picture for them to realise that they're already doing this, but they didn't realize that they had the skills and the ability to do more. As someone that's working with a founder, you need to understand their predicament as well.

00:28
Amardeep Parmar
Not all mentors and coaches are creating the same. And Vikas shows his experience to be the best he can be.

00:35
Vikas Arora
There's no clear mold. Self belief is paramount.

00:40
Amardeep Parmar
Vikas insights come from his years of experience, including building a company with his wife.

00:46
Vikas Arora
Failure is the best way for learning, right? Learning never stops.

00:49
Amardeep Parmar
Listening to his insights and how to make effective decisions.

00:53
Vikas Arora
I've only seen one do that actually say, we made a bad decision, let's stop, let's kind of, you know, go back to the drawing board.

01:07
Amardeep Parmar
You've worked with tons of founders over the years, right?

01:09
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

01:10
Amardeep Parmar
Can you tell us what capacity you worked with them in?

01:13
Vikas Arora
Wow. So, I mean, my interest in founders started many years ago. I, I did a job at Vodafone. I was a sales B2B, sort of business development manager for West London. And so that covers in West London, it's anywhere from, I think from Chiswick, actually, not even Chiswick, from Hammersmith all the way to Heathrow. Right. And a little bit further and then up Harrow, et cetera. So it was great. Lived in the middle of it, lived in Hayes, so I was able to cover that area. And I worked with, you know, small business owners to large enterprise like John Molam, Air Canada as such. But the thing that inspired me was actually going to see small sort of businesses.

02:02
Vikas Arora
And my first encounter with a founder was, and I love me, I can't remember his name, I mentioned that earlier, I'm really bad with names, but was the founder of Impact Coaches. If you remember Impact Coaches, they used to have these little white vans with Impact, used to do all the school runs. And I met the founder and he lived in a. He lives in a council flat still in near Q. And I remember going to his office and I thought, wow, it looks really good, you know, really great address. It's West London AQ take. I'm driving down the road and I'm actually, you know, suddenly I realized I should have brought wellies with me because I'm driving into this yard which is Full of mud.

02:40
Vikas Arora
And I'm coming out and my shoes are all muddy and I meet this guy and the business had been set up four years and the first thing I asked him is, why did you start a coaching business? And I was just so like, taken aback by his journey. That's. That was my first sort of interest in working with founders. And then over the time continued. And even then within Microsoft, you know, focusing on media and entertainment, I worked with some startup agencies, worked with again, companies that setting up media type of engagements. And then, you know, I think then even then at one point that got the interest in setting up my own business. And so my wife and I set up our own health and wellbeing business and taking in what I'd already learned, trying to apply that.

03:32
Vikas Arora
But then, you know, if I Fast forward to 2022. So post Covid, during COVID a lot of people went and just set up their own business out of necessity. They lost their job. There's anything they could do. And that's what got me interested, reading about them, reading about, you know, the founder insight. And then I got a call saying, do you want to coach founders from Jeffrey Consulting? I said, yeah, who are we working with? Oh, it'll be Microsoft, you know, Microsoft. Oh, yeah, okay, fine. And that. And that's the journey been on like for the last four and a half years.

04:05
Amardeep Parmar
So obviously four and a half years and working with Microsoft and is with the accelerator, the incubator and all those companies coming through that, right?

04:12
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

04:12
Amardeep Parmar
What are those traits you're seeing in them to really be able to tell when you meet them quite early? Have they got what it takes?

04:18
Vikas Arora
Yeah, I think there's so many. It's one of the things that, I mean as a coach, because I coach as well. So as a coach, you know, I'm always thinking when I'm working with these founders, you know, what's, what makes their mindset tick? Why. Why is so and so doing this? Why is so and so doing this? And oh my God, that's amazing. And you then start to observe how they work. You then start to observe, you know, how they operate. And the funny thing is, no founder, there's no clear mold. There's no Barbie doll or Kendall that, you know, they all fit the same mold. Everyone's different. So for me, being a coach, the things that stood out for me may be different for someone else, but it was things like, you know, resilience is a big one.

05:06
Vikas Arora
Perseverance, consistency, commitment, and these are things that really stand out. And then you've got the typical ones, like financial acumen. You're understanding the business. Networking is massive in these people. And, you know, I think that the irony is that, you know, although networking is a massive one and they're great networkers, half of them are introverts. And that surprises me as an introvert, that, you know, you're an introvert and you're actually having to go out and network with strangers. Yeah, that's stepping. So stepping out of their comfort zone is a big one. And, you know, it made me even more interested in understanding what they do and how they do it and why they do it. And it's a great place. Love it. I love it. And no mind is the same. No founder is the same.

05:57
Vikas Arora
When I meet these startups, the first thing I say is, why? Why are you doing what you're doing, what for? And the funny thing is there's always a personal story.

06:05
Amardeep Parmar
So looking at the resilience bit first, right, Because I completely agree with. Resilience is important, but sometimes founders, when they're listening to that, they think I'm resilient. And it's almost that sometimes when you have, like, worked as many founders that you have, people might think they're resilient, but when it comes down to it, compared to other founders or other people, they maybe don't have the same resilience. And we often ask people when we're hiring them, we'll say, what was the hardest thing you've done in your life? When people are planning to incubator. Again, same question. What's the hardest thing you've ever done? And what people consider hard, I think says a lot about what they, what the resilience is.

06:41
Vikas Arora
Yeah, yeah.

06:42
Amardeep Parmar
How are you trying to gauge, like, how do you gauge somebody's resilience? It's.

06:45
Vikas Arora
It's, everyone's story is different. And I think, you know, I say to people that, you know, everyone's trauma is. Regardless of how excessive it is, it's traumatic for that person. When you think about things like resilience, you know, the definition of resilience for some, one person will be different to another. You know, for one, it could be that, you know, I've. I started this business while having young family and managing the. Balancing the young family and making sure that I give them time and create a foundation for them, and while starting my business, that made me resilient for others. It may be that I started my business during COVID you know, no one wanted to speak to me, no one wanted to buy anything. Everyone was stuck at home, no one wanted to. But even then I made it a success.

07:28
Vikas Arora
That made me resilient. So I think it's, you know, I think the importance of knowing resilience, it's going to be different for everyone. There is no, you know, there is no cookie cutter approach to it as long as they know from a resilience standpoint, it's the key things are that no matter what is thrown at you, that you have the strength to overcome it or steer your journey in a different path, either learning through the process or avoiding the process, but even in avoidance, you. You're learning from that process. And so when you think about a founder's mindset of being resilient, it's, you know, what's the market doing? Where's my industry? And how can I, and how do I fare in that industry? Where are my customers? Who are my customers? What do I need to do to serve my customers?

08:17
Vikas Arora
And can I change my business? Do I have the strength, the capacity, the financial backing to actually make that change? And at the same time, am I enjoying myself? The crazy thing with resilience is, if you're not enjoying the rush, why do it?

08:35
Amardeep Parmar
It comes up to what you said about personal story as well, right? You said that so many of the founders you meet, they've got a personal story and that could keep them going. Maybe otherwise.

08:43
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

08:44
Amardeep Parmar
Have you seen founders maybe haven't got a personal story and still managed to succeed? Like, how crucial do you think is that you have to really have a problem that you're solving that you've experienced yourself?

08:52
Vikas Arora
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I think, you know, personal story is great because it, like you said, it's the impetus behind why you did something. But then for others, it's. They've seen a niche, they've seen something that, oh, they're doing that. But I could do it differently, I could do it better because of this. So at that point, there is no personal story. There's. There's a gap that they've exploited and thinking, I could do this, I have the skills to do it. So, yeah, there are founders that have done that have seen an opportunity. You know, the opportunistic founder that has seen something that they'll go after. You know, great example is, you know, for example, think about patient records at the nhs.

09:28
Vikas Arora
You know, if you're ever going to a hospital, go, you know, they always say, oh, we haven't got your file yet, you know, and you think, oh, hold on a minute. You're the National Health Service, you should all be one single system, which they're not. So my GP record should come to you. Why should I have to wait three days? And someone has seen that right now, you know, my wife's been in that hospital. My father, my mother in law, my father had been in that hospital. I never saw that, but I worked with someone that did see that and thought that, you know, if we could actually digitize patient records and we can then make that available to everyone via an app. So a surgeon can just literally go, oh, okay, there is, yeah. Oh, Mr. Mr. Palmer. Okay, yeah, I see this.

10:12
Vikas Arora
Yeah, great. What are you doing here? You were treated yesterday. What am I doing here? You know, it's kind of, that's what you need. And someone's seen that because they've gone through the pain, but they've had the foresight to realize that I can actually do something about it. And there are those kind of stories, and they're great stories as well, because, you know, the impetus there, the energy is there. That is that excitement that I can do this and that helps. There's passion. The other one is passion as well. Passion is massive. If you're not passionate about what you're doing as a founder, don't do it.

10:41
Amardeep Parmar
Another thing, we're working as a coach, right. It's gonna be some skills which people maybe don't always start off with, but they're able to grow and they're able to get that over time.

10:49
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

10:49
Amardeep Parmar
What are those ones that you think you see, many founders need to work on and it is something that they can work on.

10:54
Vikas Arora
Right.

10:54
Amardeep Parmar
It's not that they born a deal. They have to, for example, passion is hard. You can't teach passion. Right. You've got to really care about it.

10:59
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

11:00
Amardeep Parmar
What some of the skills that people can train.

11:02
Vikas Arora
So, so the, the key thing within how you coach yourself and how you train yourself, you know, when you think about the founders that you've worked with over time, you know, the ones that have actually made mistakes and continue to grow, that perseverance piece, that is something that people can coach themselves on and train on because it's about, first of all, you need to have the desire and the passion to follow. Because if you don't have the desire and passion, perseverance is at the door because you're, you won't have that buzz, you won't have that kind of, you know, that, that fire in you to actually do something. The second thing that people have grown into when starting up and realize that actually this is something that I didn't have before is the ability to actually learn from their mistakes.

11:52
Vikas Arora
As a founder, you are going to make mistakes, and no one, you're not taught on how to overcome them because, you know, they happen in the trenches. So you know the phrase of where, you know, we're building the plane, where we fly it. That's the founder's mantra. Because you think about, you know, someone that may have started a startup, say, three, four years ago, didn't really invest in AI. They've got no choice now. So that's, you know, if they didn't start early enough, they got to start now. So you've got to learn that aspect of learning and evolving and repackaging and repurposing. What you're doing is something that doesn't come naturally. You can't pick that up. It just happens. And you've got to change. You got to go with it.

12:38
Amardeep Parmar
And it's always about perseverance.

12:40
Vikas Arora
Right.

12:41
Amardeep Parmar
And we also. The challenge that is also know when to quit. And it's almost two different skill sets.

12:46
Vikas Arora
Right.

12:47
Amardeep Parmar
One is like, you've got to keep going even when it seems like you should quit.

12:49
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

12:49
Amardeep Parmar
But then you've also got to know when is something not working to let go, and how do you help people through that if they're. You can look at what they're doing, say, okay, you're doing too much. It's clear that some of these things aren't working.

13:00
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

13:00
Amardeep Parmar
But they refuse to let go.

13:02
Vikas Arora
Yeah. There's a, There's a. One of the things I think that with. That happens with a few founders that I've worked with is the ego piece tends to kick in. Right. So there's that. You know, you've put so much of yourself into what you're doing. It becomes your child, becomes your baby. Right. So you don't want anyone else to be involved in their growth. You don't want anyone else to nurture them. But I think there comes a time where you have to. I mean, yourself, when you started BAE, Right. There's only  few and you and Gurvir, right. And now you're a bigger team. But there was a time that you had to let go of a little bit. Otherwise, if you hadn't done, you'd have had to like, shut it down, think, I can't do this anymore.

13:41
Vikas Arora
I can't do it my own I don't want to do it, I don't want to give it to anyone else. But on the flip side, there are those scenarios where founders do have to say, enough's enough, this ain't going anywhere. And actually that is a very strong quality in being able to know when to stop. And I've only seen in the four years that I've been working with founders, I've only seen one do that actually say, we made a bad decision, let's stop, let's kind of, you know, go back to the drawing board and let's see where went wrong. And again, that comes back to learning from the mistake. So they knew they made a mistake and they took a consciousness and say, you know, it's hard and it is a hard, it's.

14:23
Vikas Arora
I think the difficulty for a founder in making, in taking such action is, comes down to if they're actually very, if they're emotionally tied into their business and they're emotionally tied into the people that they're working with. And I'm not saying be, you know, complete ruthless leader, but sometimes, you know, leaders do have to take a stance and say, this isn't going anywhere, we need to stop this. It's not going to make us money. I can't pay bills, I can't pay wages, so let's call it quits. And that's a hard decision to take but, you know, you do have to take them from time to time. As a leader, as an, as a founder, you do have to look at yourself and know that you've messed up and be open and honest about it.

15:11
Vikas Arora
And honesty is a great thing, sort of quality and inner founders actually being upfront and honest and saying, we messed up, let's call it quits.

15:20
Amardeep Parmar
Hello. Hello. Quick interruption to let you know a bit more about BAE HQ. We're the community for high growth Asian heritage entrepreneurs, operators and investors in the UK. You can join us totally free@thebaehq.com join. Ther, you'll get our CEO structure in your inbox every week, which is content, events and opportunities. You can also get access to our free startup fundamentals course by joining. Let's get back to the show. When you think about a blind spot. So sometimes founders know what they're not good at by the times, they think they're really good at something and they're not. How do you approach that? Because obviously you're coming from an external perspective and you're having some like, actually that's not really not a good idea you're not as good at like for example, with sales, right. It's like they might think I'm such a great salesperson.

16:12
Amardeep Parmar
It's like you're really not like objectively, how do you broach that? If you're trying to give and think about it from a bit of like if somebody's got a co founder, they're trying to give them that feedback but they also don't want to damage that relationship.

16:23
Vikas Arora
It's a difficult one to approach. And I think that the problem happens there is that, you know, especially where you know, you have a co founder and you're. They're almost like your mate, they're a good friend and you have again, this kind of outside of work, you have a different relationship with them. But. And that's when it becomes harder to actually say, you know, what you messed up. You're not really good at that, you know, but you've got to have the ability to kind of be constructive about it and say like, I've had situations with some founders where I've said no. Like literally. What do you mean? Like just no capital in capital. O. That's it. Stop. Can't do it. And it is with, in terms of, you know, hiring someone.

17:07
Vikas Arora
Like I've had a situation where one founder said to me, I need to, I want to hire this person and I know that person. And I said, no, don't do it. And they're like, no, but I need someone. No, don't do it. I know, I know what that person's like. And you know, and I've actually had to say that probably within three months you'll get rid of them. So it's no fairness to you because you've invested in them and it's not even fair to the guy that you're recruiting, even though he's not, he doesn't have the right personality for your business. And I've had to say that. And sometimes you've got to. I think I'm. I'm in a enviable position as a kind of success manager and business mentor and startup mentor to say that.

17:44
Vikas Arora
I can say that because I'm not in any way financially connected to them. I'm kind of like that non business advisory person that I can say you're messing up. Don't do it. Seriously. Or I can say I'm not going to support you anymore. You're making that decision. But I think startups need that. Founders need that they need that external voice. I think having a mentor, what you're providing is phenomenal because having a mentor, I think for any founder, any startup is important because it's an external voice that can be unbiased. They're not financially connected. They have no, you know, commercial ties with you as an organization. You're, you're actually buying into their expertise and your trade off is your time and their time, and that's it.

18:30
Vikas Arora
And so that relationship is a very, is fragile, but it doesn't matter because, you know, you can say, I don't want to work with you. Yeah, right. But the, ultimately, I think, you know, where we've, you know, we've had situations where we've had to say to people where I've had to don't work with you anymore. And we're trying to support you, we're trying to help you, we're trying to encourage you and coach you, but we're not seeing you actually deliver. So we're not going to work with you anymore.

19:03
Amardeep Parmar
If founders listening right now, they're thinking, okay, because it's almost a funny thing, right? Nobody thinks of themselves as uncoachable. Everybody thinks, oh, no, I listen, I pay attention. But obviously not everybody does. So how can you think about that from a founder perspective of, okay, so I want to get advice and I want to grow. How can you keep yourself in check where maybe you are being too defensive or maybe you aren't really listening properly or dismissing people when you shouldn't be? How do you encourage that mindset of that openness? How do you train people to better at that?

19:35
Vikas Arora
So I think if you are going down the journey of having a coach or having a mentor, you know, having the, you know, the first, the first meeting that you have with that person, you need to agree mutually that this is how we're going to engage and that, you know, I will from time to time as a mentor or coach, call you upon what you're doing and how you're doing it. As a coach, your role is really not to kind of. Your role as a coach is simple. You're not there to be prescriptive. You're not their teacher. You're, you're there to paint the picture for them, to realize that they're already doing this, but they didn't realize that they had the skills and the ability to do more. And so, you know that line between a coach and mentor is very different.

20:20
Vikas Arora
As a mentor, it's the kind of Miyagi kind of mentality. Right. It's like, you know, my expertise, my guidance, I'm passing it on to you and hopefully you can take some of that and utilize outlet value. There is a kind of an overlap between the two areas. But as a coach, you're meant to kind of, you know, show them the door and you know, it's a blank wall and suddenly you make the door visible. Whereas a mentor, you're going to just open the door a little bit for them and then they need to take the rest of the journey. But you are from, you know, there are going to be situations where the person that you're coaching or the person that you're the mentee or the coachee, they do switch off, they will switch off.

21:03
Vikas Arora
And you know, I always say, you know, you may have heard this before. It's a great way to, great caveat to say you may have heard this before, but the beauty in repetition is that you may have heard it before, but you never heard it the way I'm saying it or someone else is saying it. My, my mentoring coach is late and great Bob Proctor. And he used to say that repetition, consistency, dedication, the keys to success. And, and you know, he made great success out of one book, Think and Grow Rich. His whole business was off that one book. And how many of us have read it and not created a, a, a, a global coaching consultancy off it. Right. But he, and, but his art was repetition, repetition.

21:50
Vikas Arora
So I think that, you know, if, if someone feels like they've already heard it before, there's no harm in hearing it again because it reinforces the, the statement, it reinforces the subject, reinforces the learning, but also that person, your coach or your mentor maybe saying it differently, though we've never heard it before, that might resonate with you. So I think, you know, as a mentee and as a coach, he, if you have someone that's guiding you, my guidance is to them is to be open, but also to the coach and the mentor is to also be open to understand that person may have already heard that before. So it's a two way relationship.

22:31
Amardeep Parmar
I think some of the asymmetry of information. Right. Is that if you think that the advice isn't very good, then you've got to give more context back. Oh, I don't know if I told you about this before, but these are some of the things we're working on.

22:43
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

22:43
Amardeep Parmar
And then it makes more sense. I remember right at the beginning of Q, someone was like, oh, most podcasts don't get past 10 episodes. Like I've already done 200 so I'll be fine on that side. But they've said that. And it's always that context piece, right. And it's like the more context you get, the better the advice or better doors you can show is. But at the same time, if you don't give the context, then you can't be frustrated if the advice doesn't match your situation.

23:07
Vikas Arora
Yeah.

23:08
Amardeep Parmar
So is that two way relationship, right.

23:09
Vikas Arora
When you work there is a two way relationship. It's important, I think, you know, there are people that can get very prescriptive when they're giving guidance and it's almost like, you know, do as I say but never do as I do. And I think that the problem there is that you're not, you know, as someone that's working with a founder, you need to understand their predicament as well. Right. So. And you need to understand where they are and what their journey is. You know yourself that, you know, for a founder the key thing is if they bootstrap their company, that's money that they've dipped into their own pocket, their own savings, they sold their stock or they still didn't borrowed or they've gone, you know, taken a loan, family loan or whatever. So they depend upon giving that money back at some point. Right.

23:55
Vikas Arora
They bootstrap the business. The next thing they've got to go vc. And if they've never ever done that, if they've never ever put pitch deck together, if they've never had a conversation with a vc, then they're going to struggle. So you know, as a mentor and a coach, understanding that and giving them insight into that this is going to happen whether you thought about it or not. There will come a time that you will need investment and you have to go out there and get that the earlier that they're made aware of that. Not necessarily from a fair standpoint, but in terms of this is your strategy, this is your journey. It's important to coach them on that and give them guidance on how to do that.

24:29
Vikas Arora
And then you've got such a great ecosystem where from a network standpoint that those individual can come to you and say we need this help, can you help us? But I think that the understanding, having that two way understanding is really important. And one of the things that I found with working with founders is that they know where they're going, they have their mission, they're very kind of like, you know, they don't Care about the other lane, staying in my lane. I'm gonna put guardrails up on my lane. You know, like when you. When you first go bowling, you've got those guardrails out, right? So you bounce off. That's what they're going to do. And you're coming in from the other side, trying to say, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And they're like, leave me alone.

25:12
Vikas Arora
But you have to consistently come in, you have to keep chipping away until you get an open door and they do hear you. And at that point, you've got to be ready, you have to be alert. You have to be there to support them. No journey is the same. No path is the same. Everyone's different.

25:29
Amardeep Parmar
And then just before we move on to quick five questions, Is there anything about the founder mindset that we haven't covered that you think is really important to make sure you're getting?

25:36
Vikas Arora
From my experience, it's pretty much the ones I see, and it constantly changes. But I think that, you know, as a founder, if you're, you know, passion is important, definitely, you got to be passionate about what you do. You've got to love what you do. Because ultimately, as a founder, what you're creating is there to benefit someone, so you're in service of someone else. So number one's passion. Number two, definitely, you know, having that resilience, perseverance, you know, financial acumen, understand what you're doing, you know, understand that, you know, this costs money. And if you have a team, I have to pay them. So knowing that you've got, you know, you have that. If you don't get a good accountant, then you've got things like networking. The only way you are going to grow your business is by networking.

26:23
Vikas Arora
And if you say you don't sell, I'm sorry, you do, because networking is the art of selling yourself. And so, you know, you put on fabulous events for networking, but then also look at the people you network. Look outside of that, think about other networking events that you can go to. Networking is important. Understand your industry. And one of the things that I find out some founders don't do is they just go again, you know, very much, you know, they've got their kind of, like, blinders on, but they forget about the market. They forget about the industry. Oh, no, Covid happened, right? So, you know, they. They completely forget and, you know, understand what's happening in the market. How does that impact you, understand your competitors? And even if there are, even if it is a competitive landscape and you want to do it.

27:10
Vikas Arora
Don't let that, don't let that stop you because, you know, again, my mental Bob Proctor says to me, like, you know, when I want to become a coach, I said, but there's somebody out. They said, he took me out onto the street. He said, what do you see? I said, a car. I said, that's a blue one, that's a red one. Oh, that's the Mercedes. Oh, that's a Ford. Oh, that's a Jaguar. He said, they all have four wheels, they all have an engine, they'll have a steering wheel, but they're all different. So. And that's what he said to me and I understood. So, you know, competition is there, but doesn't stop you from doing what you want to do.

27:40
Vikas Arora
You know, you could be the Lamborghini of that area or you could be the Skoda on that area because you want it to be a very cost effective service. So don't stop yourself from following your dream and your passion because someone else is doing it just means that you have an opportunity to do it better and do it differently. So, but know who they are. Your competition. We talk about the resilience, networking, perseverance, passion, financial acumen. And then also I think that, you know, self belief is paramount. You've got to believe that you can do it because, you know, you wouldn't have given up that corporate job, you wouldn't have got all that money together to start it. Self belief, I, and I see that a lot in founders.

28:26
Vikas Arora
They truly do believe, not to the extent that you're blind to what else is going on or you're, you know, you really, you know, you have no idea that your business is failing. But self belief in the sense in your own abilities and skills and all of that encompassed into, you know you're going to fail. Be prepared for failure. That's a paramount one. Yeah, you are going to fail. And every anyone that isn't, if you're a founder, you're going to fail. But you know what? Go out and celebrate that failure. Why? Because you've just found out a way in which not to do it wrong. You've just realized something I need to learn failure is the best way for learning.

29:08
Vikas Arora
I actually say that I'm about to do a podcast on my best friend and giving the game away here, and my best friend is failure. Because, you know, without that, you're not going to learn. Every mistake you make is the ability to actually grow from one of my dear friends is Ex British Olympian Colin Jackson. And he talked about marginal gains, like, you know, for him as a, when he was running the 100 meter hurdles, you know, a 0.3 second extension in his time. And his speed is the difference between getting, losing, not even getting a bronze and getting a gold. That's, you know, that's the marginal gain. So that meant that, okay, if I could just leap earlier, then I can get over the hurdle, but then leaping too early means my foot could clip the hurdle and I could fall.

30:01
Vikas Arora
And he goes. That has happened every time. But I've learned every second, every moment, every time I've done that, I've learned and every failure has helped me to gain which then got in the world record. You know, held the world record for what, two years to two tournaments. And if you watch any YouTube video on Usain Bolt, Virat Kohli, they all talk about the comebacks from failure. And that's the same in entrepreneurship and business. You know, the ability to learn from your failure is paramount. And also then finally learning, we come out of university, we come out of school, think that's it, I don't need to pick up a book anymore. Right. Learning never stops.

30:40
Amardeep Parmar
So thanks so much for everything you shared today.

30:42
Vikas Arora
Thank you.

30:43
Amardeep Parmar
Quick fire question time.

30:44
Vikas Arora
Go for it. So this is what scares me the most.

30:48
Amardeep Parmar
So who are free British, Asians or Asians in Britain you think are doing incredible work and you'd love to shout them out.

30:53
Vikas Arora
So Zam, everyone knows Zamiha Desai from Professional Asian and recommendation. I met her when she was first starting out and now look at what she's done. You know, from a simple thing like someone help me, I need to tie a sari to look where it's got to. And she's creating a community of other, a platform for other business leaders in the Asian society, in the community, in the UK. I think that's so Zamiha Desai, we spoke about our dear friend Kalpesh Patel. KP, what he's done very, you know, he's such a humble person, you know, and there's no ego in him.

31:29
Vikas Arora
And he's created a great network again for founders to come together and the, you know, the net, the opportunities created for them to interact with people like, you know, like with Jimmy Choo and you know, I think we've, there's a, with Kate Spade, etc, you know, phenomenal person. And then big shout out to, I don't know if you know, Rajkotecha, my friends, your friends. So again, you know, from humble sort of upbringing, Salford, to where he is working with people like Gary Vee and Tony Robbins and. And Steve Bartlett. I had an opportunity to actually spend some time with him just literally about a week ago, actually. Yeah. What he's done and what he's doing with unstoppable social proof, I think is undeniable social proof. Sorry. Raj is great. And so I think.

32:24
Vikas Arora
And with all three, their desire to actually give back and share without wanting that is the one value that stood out for me, for all three of them.

32:34
Amardeep Parmar
Yeah. Know them all, love them all. Then next question is, if people want to find out more about you and what you're up to, where should they go?

32:39
Vikas Arora
To Instagram, @vikas, arora on LinkedIn, but mainly on Instagram. And then my podcast, which is Conscious Conversations.

32:48
Amardeep Parmar
And if the audience could help you today, what can they do?

32:51
Vikas Arora
I'm a great networker. I love connecting people. So if there's any way in which I can connect the community, please give me a shout.

33:01
Amardeep Parmar
And again, thanks so much for coming on. Any final words?

33:04
Vikas Arora
No, I. I mean, you know, I think, first of all, thank you for having me as a guest. And I just want to say that I love what you do, love your story. And so, yeah, keep on doing it.

33:18
Amardeep Parmar
Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time. 

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