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The TOP TEN Attributes of the Successful CAT Tamer

The CAT ? that three letter feline acronym that sends chills down the spine of many an MBA aspirant ? is now just a few
months away.
The CAT ? that three letter feline acronym that sends chills down the spine of many an MBA aspirant ? is now just a few
months away. After changing its stripes over the last two years, and with additional guile that its makers seem to embed
in it each passing year, this time the chill-factor is probably at its highest! To top it all, the all-round economic growth we
have been witnessing has created a huge gap between the demand and supply of quality managers, thus pushing up the
monetary level of salaries offered to graduating students at the top B School campuses. This fact, nicely hyped up by the
media is drawing ever more people to the CAT race (pun intended, of course!) and making the competition stiffer by the
year. If you are an MBA aspirant, hoping to tame the CAT this year and nail a hotly contested seat in one of the IIMs or
other top B Schools, believe me, you are in the best of times and the worst of times ? best because this is the right time
to go get yourself an MBA degree and a new career path; worst because never has the competition to get in been as
tough! Delicious irony is the phrase that springs to one?s mind while witnessing this torrid landscape of what I might call
the MBA battlefield.

So what is it that sets a warrior apart from the thousands and lakhs of other contenders who throng every year at the
circus ring, hoping to bring the CAT to its knees? What are the top qualities of head and heart that make for a winner? In
what measure should you try and imbibe these qualities to be able to launch a credible and effective campaign? This
inaugural article of mine attempts to answer some of these questions. It is clear that if you are reading these lines, you
are dead serious about your mission of getting yourself a seat at the MBA table next summer; however, I am going to
keep the tone of this article light and humourous, so that you get the message without adding to the chills running down
that spine! I think most of the media and the plethora of your run-of-the-mill coaching institutes are doing enough to
create a fear psychosis around the CAT, and I do not want to act like a war-monger egging on gladiators from the
sidelines. Let us see if we at Solid Gyan can give you calm, rational and ?solid? advice on how to be an effective CAT
tamer.

To keep things simple and straight, I am adopting the frequently used method of classifying this advice into TOP TEN
qualities that are desirable in an MBA aspirant who hopes to be a winner. Presented in no particular order, these are
also, not coincidentally, the qualities needed in a good business leader/manager. It may take a while for you to see that
the selection processes of most good B Schools measure you for these qualities at some point during the race. So,
without further ado, let us plunge in!

1. Attitude is one of the most important factors in determining your chances of getting into the IIMs (when you read this 3
letter acronym in my articles, take it to include some other top ranked B Schools as well). The IIM is no ordinary
institution that thrives only on academic excellence. Students that make it into these institutes bring with them a certain
devil-may-care (some might say arrogant) attitude that loves challenges and is not willing to go to bed with Ms. Status
Quo.

If you have an attitude that says ?Why not?? as often as ?Why??, that does not get bogged down in shallow one-up-
manship, that refuses to give up or lie down meekly, that treats everybody with respect but does not fawn upon the high
and mighty, that loves each of life?s moments as if it was the only one available ? then you might be just the kind of
person that the IIMs are looking for.

So, right here and right now, resolve to:

- Analyze your Attitude
- Get critical inputs about it from those who wish you well
- Begin to slowly transform those areas that stick out as sore thumbs
- Not give up, ever!Remember the Wisdom of the Gita : ?Man is made by his Belief. As he believes, so he is?. So get an
Attitude, Life will follow!

2. Discipline is a very misunderstood word, in my opinion. Children think of a teacher?s stick when you utter the word.
Parents look at it as a way to tackle adolescence. The defence forces talk of it as the common glue that holds officers
and men in formation and fighting fit. The Indian cricket team resents it since it means curfew hours and no wives or
girlfriends during overseas tours!

So what does ?discipline? have to do with an aspiring MBA student? Well, just about everything! As you know it by now,
getting into a top B-School in India is about as easy as getting in and out of Fort Knox. So when one wants to gear up for
such an assault, discipline becomes a close friend rather than something to despise. It is only a disciplined MBA aspirant
who will ensure he leaves nothing to chance and horoscopes. Each step of the preparation, be it for the written test like
the CAT, or for the GD and PI that follows soon after, has to be meticulously planned and executed. Sweating it out for 3
days at a stretch and then coasting for the next three, lazing around, will only increase your blood pressure as the D-Day
approaches. Putting in 2-3 hours every day in a planned and methodical manner will be far more productive.

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Sticking to a plan helps. Keeping relatively fixed hours for the various components of your life increases chances of
success. For example, many of us forget the passage of time when slouched before the TV, watching an inconsequential
one-day international or some mundane TV serial. With discipline, you will limit the time spent in front of the idiot-box,
ration your movie-going trips yourselves, get the right amount of physical exercise daily and do your Mental Maths
religiously (more about this attribute later).

Remember, most successful business leaders may not admit it in public, but they will privately acknowledge that they got
to their current exalted positions by being disciplined in everything they did, including enjoying themselves at social
events and parties! Being disciplined is another way of reducing wasteful time and resources, and this increases a
person?s efficiency. And getting into the IIMs is all about preparing for it smartly and efficiently. In fact, that leads me
nicely into the next TOP TEN quality!

3. Efficiency is the hallmark of a good manager and leader. Simply stated, efficiency is the measure of one?s ability to
use the minimum inputs to generate the maximum output. Borrowing and extending a well-known quote: If necessity is
the mother of invention, then efficiency is the father of innovation! It is the drive to be more efficient that brings us faster
and cheaper air travel, slimmer and slicker televisions, safer and quicker painkillers and ? short-cuts and hot tips for
cracking the CAT, your first hurdle to an IIM! In fact, in Solid Gyan, you might find one of the most efficient ways of
booking that coveted seat in a top B School.

In our usual student life, the focus is more on accuracy than efficiency. Time is usually an abundant resource for a
graduate student and pressure to perform is about as intense as in a monastery. However, the CAT ? short for Common
Admission Test ? makes mincemeat of those who view time as if she were an old girlfriend ? always available! By asking
MBA aspirants to solve 150 or more questions in about two hours, the examiner is asking them to be super-efficient. So if
you have not started doing so already, please begin to value time as if there was no tomorrow. Eliminate redundant work
and focus on that which will give you the desired results. Keep honing your skills ? in this case speed-reading, using
common sense, creative problem solving, etc. ? to a finely calibrated level. After all, when you are competing with nearly
200,000 smart people for just a couple thousand seats, every minute saved and every question answered correctly
makes all the difference between success and failure.

So get your act together ? start giving Father Time due respect, marshal your resources well and launch an efficient
assault on the biggest test of them all ? the CAT. With just a few more months to go, can you afford to be anything but
efficient? The answer is a big NO!

4. Mental Maths is, in my opinion, a key requirement for making it past the first hurdle of any entrance process ? the
written test. Here I would like to distress the Maths part, for it is my firm belief that the CAT is not designed to test how
quickly you can solve complex equations and arrive at the answer with a bulls-eye accuracy. My reference is to the
mental part of the phrase and this is where I think the good and successful manager and leader sprints ahead of the
pack. Allow me to dilate on the subject of ?Maths gone Mental?.

In my many years of studying the CAT taker, I have often come across the type that looks at Maths the way one would
deal with a close relative suffering from chicken pox. Forced to stay close for reasons beyond his control, he still desists
getting too close to it! Our schooling system and the pressure to perform in exams could be the culprits here. Instead of
enjoying the interplay of numbers and figures that are intrinsic to the subject, we start seeing Maths as a bunch of
theorems and formulae to be learnt by heart to score well in exams. No wonder, we start seeing the subject with hateful
eyes. My appeal to all MBA aspirants is to go back to fundamentals and start asking themselves why mankind invented
Maths in the first place. My belief is that the early human discovered the beauty of Maths while trying to cut down on his
inefficient ways of doing things (do you see some common threads linking the various attributes now?).

Look at the concept of multiplication ? is it not a quick way of adding the same number to itself many times? Or is division
again not a quick way of distributing the harvest from a large field to all the seven sons of a farmer equally? Geometry
was probably discovered by early builders who had to plan a building?s height, base and perimeter. They must have
hoped to please the king with the solidity of the design and the aesthetic proportions of the end result. The concept of
speed, time and distance is a likely gift from early travelers who had to plan reaching a safe destination before sundown.

The advent of calculators and computers, while creating tremendous progress for mankind, has done one great
disservice to it. Man today has become so reliant on these gadgets that his mind is now not getting the kind of exercise
needed to keep it in top gear. We are getting more verbal and relish the interplay of words found in language, but when it
comes to numbers and related concepts, we switch off the mind and switch on the computer. You might argue that as a
future CEO you would always have access to these gadgets, so why should there be a need to get the mind to labour on
these mathematical calculations. My answer is that even rich CEOs who get to travel in First Class and get driven around
in stretch limos, do get on the treadmill to keep the body fit. Mental Maths is no different. By practicing the solving of
mathematical problems by using only our brain, we give it the vitality and suppleness that is needed in solving problems
of a more intricate and intractable nature. The real world in which the MBA operates after getting a job requires a mind
that is razor-sharp, intense and super-quick. Mental Maths will help you enjoy the challenge and get your mind in the kind
of shape needed to tame the CAT in those crucial two hours!
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As a small exercise, do the following:

- Draw polygons of ?n? sides, starting from n = 3 (a triangle)
- Draw all the possible diagonals ?d? of each such polygon. A triangle has 0 diagonals, while a square (n = 4) has two
diagonals (d = 2), and so on
- Go up to a Dodecagon (n=12), finding the number of diagonals for each polygon by drawing them
- Write a table with three columns and name them ? ?Shape?, ?Value of n? and ?Value of d?. Populate this table with
the values you have worked out. Your table should look something like this:
ShapeValue of nValue of dTriangle30Square42Pentagon55
? and so on.

Now look for some trend or pattern among these numbers, and see if you can ?discover? a relationship (mentally)
between n and d. Avoid using a formula-based approach to this and see if you start having fun with maths.

As another fun-with-numbers exercise, divide the numbers 2 to 9 by 11 and look at the result you get each time. Notice
anything interesting? If you do, you are on your way to crunching CAT problems like so much buttered popcorn! 5.
Reading widely is a sure fire way to ignite the rockets under your IIM bound starship. Too often we find apparently
brilliant CAT tamers succumb in the elimination rounds of Group Discussions and Personal Interviews, because they
come across as too one-dimensional to the selection jury. I have known of a student who got calls from all IIMs three
years running, but was not able to convert any of them! Let me explain how developing your reading range and
competence can put some distance between you and other contenders.

Reading competence among the average person is quite low. Even very strong thinkers and bright students often have
severe limitations of reading comprehension and speed. This affects them adversely in two ways. Firstly their slow
speeds allow them to read only a limited amount every day and their lower comprehension ability limits their body of
knowledge. Secondly, during the exam itself, they tend to lose time as they grapple with the instructions, the RC
passages and the questions. It has been found that most average readers read at a speed of about 200 to 250 words per
minute (wpm), while a decent performance in the CAT and other competitive exams for B-Schools requires an average
reading speed of 450 to 500 wpm. With proper guidance and sufficient practice, you can inch up to this goal over a 2-3
month period.

There is another myth about reading comprehension and speed that has been proved wrong during my lectures on
Reading Comprehension at Career Plan NOIDA, where I have been teaching young IIM hopefuls. Using a mix of
techniques that includes the Underlining Hand Motion technique and Active Reading, I have shown students that their
reading comprehension actually improves with speed. In other words, reading comprehension level is directly
proportional to your reading speed! This sounds counter-intuitive, but you can prove it to yourself by giving it a try. As you
use the above techniques and read at the higher speed, you stop regressing and are forced to move along the text at a
constant speed. This improves your ability and concentration since you now know that you do not have the luxury of
going back over the material you have already read. Most of us can become voracious readers if only we could eliminate
some of the bad reading habits we acquire over a period of time ? sub-vocalizing, regressing and passive reading, to
name a few.

Once you have increased your average reading speed (and comprehension), begin to increase the range of topics you
devour to keep your mind well fed. If you are an engineer, you would be well-advised to pick up some books on
economics, philosophy and politics. If you are an Arts or a History major, you can expand your reading repertoire, by
delving into the realms of science, technology and engineering. Many of us abhor subjects that we find boring ? but at
least for the keen MBA Aspirant, there should be no hesitation in plunging into the most distasteful of topics. As a future
manager, there is no telling what type of management problem you might be called upon to solve and in what milieu. So
rather than put boundaries around your reading range, get adventurous! Read, read and read on all kinds of subjects,
build your speed using some well-tested techniques and get involved with your reading ? you will find the benefits of this
emerging in about 3 months from the start date. I guarantee it!

6. Vocabulary, simply put, is the collection of words in a language that are at one?s command when fashioning
comprehensible statements and responses, either orally or in writing. Early in your childhood, you might have had a
tough time with many words, not knowing what each meant precisely. Many of us took to the standard procedure of
memorizing difficult words, so we could get by in the exams. As we grow up, we experience diverse situations, opinions
and emotions, thus accentuating our need for better word power. Some of us who have had the good fortune of living in
a home full of magazines and books, decided it was better to learn through experience, and we started reading and
imagining the world the author was painting for us. In my humble opinion, this is the best way to develop a lasting love for
words and to develop a solid vocab, as opposed to one that is built using memory-enhancing techniques. There is
another great advantage of developing one?s vocabulary through wide reading ? you develop a great general knowledge
and a thinking mind. These are the natural by-products of reading, writing, debating and discussing issues that are
important or topical.

So why do the IIMs and other B-Schools make such a hue and cry about a good vocab? Why does a manager need to
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be a walking lexicon? Are important corporate strategies and decisions worded using those mind-bending examples
found in the Barron?s Guide?

I think we need to look for answers that are not all that obvious. Clearly, words are a way of expressing ideas and a
manager or leader that has an abundant supply of words under his easy command, is a person who has taken his mind
across a vast landscape of ideas and thoughts. When you learn a new word in life, you also try and think about a
situation where that word might do justice and you exercise your mind in ways not done before. People with good
vocabulary usually betray a high degree of curiosity in anything new, and an ability to put together complex ideas in lucid
terms. They are often well read, well informed, imaginative and incisive. All these qualities are indeed the ones that make
a good leader, and the B-Schools are keen to pick the right horses to groom and back in the competitive derbies of the
corporate world.

In my own personal case, I used an accidental discovery of the works of Sir P.G. Wodehouse in a library as the
launching pad for building a decent vocabulary. This happened early in Engineering School, and then I started writing out
3-4 words and their meanings everyday in a diary. Over a period of time, I developed a reasonable vocabulary, which I
then used to play games with my friends with similar interests. At the dinner table, in the corridors, in a cancelled class,
some of us started testing each other?s lexical knowledge. This reinforced the words we had learnt, but more
importantly, it helped each of us learn from the vocabulary of the other. If you are one looking to develop your vocab into
a competitive powerhouse, I would strongly recommend surrounding yourselves with friends with a competitive streak for
knowing as many words as possible. Such a ?Buddy System? will make the learning absolute fun, and you will not detest
the kind of forced learning that is aimed at maxing an exam just a few months away. Drawing a simple analogy with a
professional athlete, one who trains and develops his endurance using natural exercise and perseverance enjoys longer
lasting health and positive results when compared to one who is a walking steroid bank!

Learning new words need not stop after you have made it into a good B-School. This can be a life-long pursuit, as there
are enough words and idioms in any language to keep us thirsting for more. As you advance in your career, you will find
that better opportunities often come to your colleagues who are smart, communicative and well-endowed with an
extensive vocabulary. Don?t you want to be one of those rapid climbers of the corporate ladder? If yes, get with it and
start today. Read widely, analyse critically, argue your case diligently and develop this one component ? a great
vocabulary - that will set you apart from the many also-rans in corporate life!

7. Intelligence can be ranked as pretty high up there in the list of important traits needed by an MBA aspirant who wants
to make it into the IIMs. I might draw some flak for this statement, since there are many ?gurus? who are likely to jump
up and say that any Tushar, Deepak or Hari can clear the hurdles with hard work and passion for his goal. While I would
agree that the latter are important enablers, there is something to be said for cerebral acuity as well. However, too many
people confuse intelligence with the ability to score high in exams. That is not the kind of intelligence that I am trying to
list here as the key to success. There are several kinds of intelligence, so let us cast our eye on some of them.
- Mental Intelligence: This is the kind that gets you to exercise your grey cells while solving fundamental problems at
school or college. Armed with this intelligence, you can calculate the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle,
given its two other sides. Or write an imaginary speech to be delivered on Independence Day if you were made the Prime
Minister for a day. Or know the meaning of words such as ?fissiparous?, ?cantankerous? or ?triskaidekaphobia?! This
intelligence will manifest itself in a good IQ score, a good performance at regular school and university exams (as I said
before, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for success, and other factors may increase or decrease your
chances of doing well at these levels) and a structured thought process. This intelligence is the result of nature as well as
nurture, which means that you were born with some and acquired some along the way as you grew up. Needless to say,
you can continue to grow this component at any age, as long as you retain the humility of heart and mind needed in a
good student!
- Emotional Intelligence: Have you seen a really intelligent person fall apart under intense pressure or adverse
circumstances? It happens all the time in our daily lives ? really bright students floundering in their careers, people with
eminent degrees becoming lousy managers and highly talented teams failing to achieve their targets. What you have
here is a paucity of what is termed Emotional Intelligence, often measured as EQ or Emotional Quotient. You can
develop this intelligence with practice and make your future a bright one even if you are short on the raw intelligence we
talked about earlier. Play team games, meet and interact with all types of people, practice self-control when faced with
unpleasant situations ? in short become a person you and others would like to spend time with! The watch yourself excel
in group discussions and charm interview panels.
- Body Intelligence: This is an important, though often ignored aspect of our personalities. Simply stated, this is an in-
depth understanding of your whole body, your mannerisms, body language and its impact on the people around you. You
can see this intelligence manifest itself in a person?s walk, in her handshake, in the way one reacts to sudden physical
events. I have found good sportsmen to have good body intelligence. Most sports require you to be acutely aware of your
physical surroundings, your own capabilities and limitations and to make the best use of your resources (time, energy,
equipment, etc.) under constraints (rules of the game). Is that not what a good manager does for a living? Is that not
what you need to do when taking the CAT? So don?t just be a bookworm ? get out there and develop this aspect of you
personality pronto! (Hey, finish this article first, okay?) One can list some other dimensions for intelligence (for example
Creative Intelligence, often characterized by the ability to find patterns in dissociated entities and harness unstructured
thoughts) but I hope you can see that a one-dimensional picture of intelligence is misleading. Go beyond that and you
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increase your overall chances of dribbling a basketball at one of the IIMs? playgrounds!

8. Thinking smart is another key quality in this list of ingredients I have been describing in this article. Thought is the
defining difference between the human species and the others that have preceded it in their advent on this planet. We all
think practically 24 by 7, but the fortunate few who have developed the art and science of Thinking Smart are the ones
who can count their chances of entry into the IIMs and other top B-Schools as reasonably bright.

A career in Management and Business Administration is different from many others ? it calls upon the practitioner to be
capable and competent in areas that run the gamut of human endeavours. From finding the right marketing mix for a new
product to launching a new NGO battling illiteracy, from getting an ERP implemented across a hundred locations
worldwide to managing the media during a company crisis, from getting a competitor to back off from its predatory pricing
to lobbying the government for a law protecting the industry?s interests, a manager is called upon to exercise a very wide
range of skills. The skill of Critical Thinking acts like a charioteer commanding the horses that represent these skills. So if
you are gunning for a career in the exciting world of business management, your best bet is in developing your critical
thinking skills. In addition, you need to develop the ability to see things from different perspectives, abjuring from
becoming slave to a few stifling mindsets.

At Solid Gyan, you will find a strong emphasis laid on this ability to think right and think smart. The term Think Without
Ink, coined by Mr. K. Venkataraman of the TWI Foundation in Bangalore, is a result of years of research into the kind of
questions asked at exams like the CAT. For a deeper insight into TWI, browse over to Venkat?s Corner, and see why I
have listed this attribute in my list of Must-Haves.

9. Knowledge would be a shoo-in for this list of TOP TEN attributes needed in a successful MBA aspirant, don?t you
think? And isn?t that an obvious choice? Admitted, the IIMs are not looking for just walking encyclopedias, and a lot of
successful candidates make it due to their ability to think differently, but can creativity and originality flower in the
absence of knowledge? I doubt it very much. It is not for nothing that there is so much stress on acquiring a wide cross-
section of knowledge when preparing to breach the IIM citadels. Unlike some of the other professional degrees like
Engineering, Medicine and Law, where the focus of testing is on a particular set of subjects, potential managers are
tested for their omniscience and general application of a wide array of skills. The MBA is perhaps the only case of a post-
graduate program that uses school level knowledge of Mathematics and English (okay, the vocabulary requirements
would be at par with those of senior linguaphiles, but otherwise the English usage skills are quite rudimentary) as the
basic requirement to pass the test.

Knowledge, like intelligence, can be sub-divided into a couple of categories. The first is Fundamental Knowledge ? that
which is acquired during primary and secondary education. If you have been an active and attentive student at that level,
you have this basic knowledge of Maths, Sciences, Social Studies, Languages, Computers, etc. The second is Domain
Knowledge, so called because it pertains to a particular domain in which the candidate has professed competence. For
example, for an MBA aspirant with a Bachelors degree in Economics, the interview panel might be interested in testing
how well he understands the concept of price elasticity of demand. A Mechanical Engineer might get quizzed about the
differences between a two-stroke and four-stroke engine. It is very important for you to be knowledgeable about your
area of study or work. Please do not make the wrong and facile assumption that you can fool the interview panel through
empty jargon or practiced diversionary tactics. They have seen so many such attempts in their interviewing careers that
they will mentally consign you to the category of hollow pretenders! There goes your chance up in smoke.

The third type of knowledge that would be important to focus on is General Knowledge. We all know this from school
days ? The GK quiz competitions were quite a hit with most of the people who are now girding their loins for entry into the
top B-schools. General Knowledge and Awareness spans a wide spectrum and tells the IIMs how well you have been
preparing yourself for the future role of a manager. A curious bent of mind is a pre-requisite to developing your general
awareness. Among my batch mates at IIMB, we had people who knew all significant cricket statistics by heart. Others
were extremely well informed about political parties and film scandals. So if you have not already started, get cracking on
developing a wide-ranging reading habit.

In summary, keep yourself well informed and deeply knowledgeable about fundamentals and your particular domain
area, while getting comfortably acquainted with a broad body of general knowledge. This should not only give you a
strong edge during your tests, group discussions and interviews, but also make you a hit with the opposite sex. How?s
that for an extra bonus?

10. Will power is my final choice to round off this list. Yes, it is will-power that will keep you steadfast in pursuit of your
goal during the arduous months of preparation and across the various phases of the entry procedure.

It has been said that Faith is the ability to enjoy the warmth of the fire-place while chopping the wood. Faith of this kind
feeds your will-power and keeps you going during those dark days of self-doubt and laziness. I have seen several MBA
aspirants start their preparations in earnest zeal, only to chuck their dreams at the first sign of a roadblock. And believe
me, roadblocks are a certainty when pursuing any goal, be it before getting into a good B-school or after getting out of it.
With a strong will-power, you will be able to turn every such adversity into a spur of opportunity, and benefit from the
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adrenalin that surges through your veins during such times.

There are a few ways you can develop your will-power and keep it from sapping at difficult times. Here are a few of them
and the list is by no means exhaustive:
- Define and visualize your goals clearly ? Too many people give up easily because they have not invested the time and
energy in doing this task, so they lack the passion during the preparatory journey. If you are spending time, money and
energy on preparation just because your best friend is doing so, you will not develop the requisite strength of purpose
and will give up as soon as some other friend comes along and convinces you that getting into a job and earning some
easy money is the right thing to do at this stage in your life. Borrowed dreams rarely find a strong backing from one?s
will.
- Develop a positive outlook on life ? We have all seen people triumph over such obstacles and overcome such
handicaps that it almost seems they are superhuman. Every success story often has tragic sub-plots that we fail to see. It
is therefore our duty to avoid negative emotions like fear, self-doubt, envy and anger. When we face a setback, we
should just see it as a minor sub-plot in an evolving success story. Positive qualities such as courage, perseverance and
enthusiasm will keep your will-power from sagging during the months leading up to the CAT and in the intense weeks
that follow it.
- Develop a strong support ecosystem ? Though will-power is a very personal thing and we cannot borrow or buy it, we
can certainly surround ourselves with the right ?infrastructure? to make it flourish in us. Stock your library with some
inspiring books, follow the life and times of some strong role-model, have friends who are endowed with a formidable will-
power of their own and use the wisdom available within your family. Such a support ecosystem will let you survive the
intense pressure and render your will-power calamity proof!
- Eliminate unproductive or energy-draining pursuits from your routine ? We are often slaves of many habits. A Chinese
proverb says, ?A habit is a shirt made of iron?! How true! We often do not realize how we end up spending our time and
energy on idle pursuits. For some, this might be endless chats on the Internet, for others a ?First day, First Show? movie-
going culture. I have known students and working professionals who take so many smoke breaks during the day that
they lose not only the time taken for the breaks but also the concentration in the periods in between. By eliminating
unnecessary yet powerful temptations from your life, you will not have your will-power waste itself on them. You will stay
focused on your well-defined goals and let your will-power draw from the positive energy of your dreams.With a ?Never
say die? spirit that comes as a free bonus with a strong will-power, you are ahead of several competitors in the fray. As
the long months of preparation test the patience and perseverance of many of these candidates, a good percentage will
wilt and fade away with every passing week. Even if they do not physically quit the race, they are just going through the
motions. You can easily be a part of this crowd, or you can will yourself into being a winner all the way. The power of
choice and will is clearly yours!

There, then, are the TOP TEN attributes of a Winner, in my opinion, at least! It is very likely that some other sagacious
fellow will have a different list, but I am counting on it not being significantly different, at least in spirit if not in letter.

I am excited to be a part of Solid Gyan?s community of thinkers and doers and I look forward to a rich and healthy
interaction with its patrons, past, present and future. I will be equally happy (OK, that might be a trifle insincere J) to hear
from anyone who feels he/she found the right advice and inspiration from my article and from someone who finds my
thoughts just a lot of poppycock and gobbledygook! Either way, I hope you will agree with the thoughts of these great
thinkers and get inspired by them.
- What we think, we become. ? Gautam Buddha
- Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. ?Confucius
- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ? Aristotle
- Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems. ? Rene Descartes

Pramod Joshi, an engineer from IT-BHU and an MBA from IIM Bangalore, left the corporate world after over two decades
of international experience, to train MBA aspirants and future managers at Career Plan NOIDA. He teaches and writes
on subjects such as Verbal Ability, Reading Comprehension, Logical Reasoning, Group Discussions and Personal
Interviews. He is a popular personality development facilitator at many colleges and gives career guidance to working
professionals and aspiring managers. He can be reached at pramod@solidgyan.com.

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