Rather, it was a more eclectic list, with timeless classics like How to Win Friends and Influence People and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People there were also the modern bestseller, The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck, described by at least one critic as self-help for people who hate that word. Rich Dad, Poor Dad was perhaps the only book on the list directly linked to wealth accumulation.
There may be a lesson here. Wealth may just be a by-product of various forms of self-actualisation that self-help book authors write about. Atomic Habits by James Clear, for instance, aims to help readers change bad habits and build good ones. If you do succeed, you’re highly unlikely to be struggling with insolvency. Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret is about finding the power within oneself to achieve the seemingly impossible—including a billion bucks.
It’s important to put the Forbes India Rich List—put together by Forbes Asia Wealth Editor Naazneen Karmali—in that perspective. Most of the ladies and gentlemen who figure on it are success stories for various reasons the wealth is the icing.
Success tends to begin with a single spark—like a trading business started from the small town Gobindgarh in sheer desperation in the 1950s that is today worth almost ₹80,000 crore on the stock markets. That’s the story of the Qimat Rai Gupta-founded Havells today it is a pioneer in the fast-moving electrical goods (FMEG) category, thanks to the efforts of the next-gen Anil Rai Gupta who graces one of the five Forbes India covers in this fortnight’s collectors’ edition. For more on the remarkable journey—and the competition that is closing in—turn to Naandika Tripathi’s ‘Back In The Game’.
And, lest we forget, the junior Gupta and his mother Vinod are at Rank 30, worth $6.7 billion.
Best,
Brian Carvalho
Editor, Forbes India
Email: Brian.Carvalho@nw18.com
Twitter ID: @Brianc_Ed
First Published: Dec 04, 2023, 12:04
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