A Billionaire’s Advice

 
 
 

Vocabulary

serial	provide	entrepreneur
advice	found (2)	give/gave/given
success	host (3)	internalize
peace	register	domain name
set up	pretty (2)	catch/caught/caught
set in	achieve	make ends meet
piece	event (2)	believe (2)
keep	humble	all the time
except	sentence	caught up with
sort of	boom (2)	set your mind to
gain	against	fundamental
physics	sound (2)	break/broke/broken (3)
law (2)	delusion	begin/began/begun
sight	provide	subject (4)
afford	code (2)	love at first sight
repeat	domain	spend/spent/spent
require	space (2)	pretty much
dose	internal	sell/sold/sold
CEO	as long as	confidence

 
 
 
 
 

Video: The Billionaire Secret

 
 
 
 

Transcript

Bhavin Turakhia, Serial Entrepreneur: “My success as an entrepreneur has been thanks to one piece of advice that my father gave me.”

Bhavin Turakhia has been founding software companies since his teens. He and his brother made millions from India’s 1990s internet boom, providing services like web hosting and domain name registration.

CEO Secrets caught up with him at an event for entrepreneurs.

Bhavin Turakhia, Serial Entrepreneur: “We came from pretty humble beginnings actually. My dad used to work nine to nine every day just to make ends meet.

Everything I am today is in many ways thanks to my father.

The piece of advice he used to keep repeating all the time in our childhood.

Sometimes, we would say, ‘Dad, we know!’ But the number of times it had been repeated, really sets it in.

It sounds so simple; it’s really just once sentence:

‘You can achieve anything you set your mind to.’

But once you sort of internalize that, you really gain the confidence. Except for breaking the fundamental laws of physics, you can pretty much achieve anything you set you mind to.”

He began coding at school, aged 10. His father provided him with lots of books on the subject.

Bhavin Turakhia, Serial Entrepreneur: “I fell in love at first sight. For me, I spent all my time in the computer room. We couldn’t afford a computer back home.”

While at school, he set up his first software companies.

Bhavin Turakhia, Serial Entrepreneur: “I always believe entrepreneurship requires a healthy dose of delusion, because each time I start with a completely new idea in a different space and industry that I knew nothing about, I always believed internally I can achieve anything I set my mind to.”

He has made more than one billion dollars ($1 billion) selling companies he founded.
Today, he is CEO of two successful software companies.

“You can achieve anything you set you mind to.”*

*as long as it’s not against the fundamental laws of physics.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

 

Questions

1. Bhavin Turakhia says he is successful because of education. His father always told him to study hard, attend university, graduate and become successful. True or false?

2. His father was a successful engineer and businessman and his mother was a teacher. Is this right or wrong or we don’t know?

3. What is Bhavin’s secret to success? What was his father’s simple advice?

4. Is it enough to just hear an advice once?

5. Bhavin became interested in selling and marketing in college and became successful in sales and marketing. Is this correct or incorrect?

6. Has he only worked on projects that he had a background in?

7. What is the one caveat to his father’s advice?

 

A. I have studied computer programming and coding. Yes or no? Do you know any computer programmers or software engineers?

B. What would you like to achieve or accomplish in life? What would you like to succeed in? I would like to . . . I would like to succeed in . . . .

C. Who is the most successful person you know?

D. Have your parents and teachers given you advice on success?

E. What might happen in the future?