#10 Entrepreneurial Lessons From Movie 'Sachin: A Billion Dreams' By setting attainable targets and achieving little victories over time, an individual's outlook becomes brighter and commitment grows stronger

Movie "Sachin: A Billion Dreams' is based on the life of Indian cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar, the most celebrated sportsperson in India. The movie moves from Sachin's journey from a restless 10-year-old boy, watching India winning her first World Cup with Kapil Dev lifting the trophy, to fulfilling his dream of holding the same in his hands for India again.

He is the youngest recipient to date and the first-ever sportsperson to receive Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award. The film not only captures Sachin Tendulkar's dedication to cricket and his personal life, but also reveals many entrepreneurial lessons. A few of them are as follows:

Focus is an Important Element of Success

Focus is the ability to pay attention to the thing that is most important to you and avoid distractions that will affect your efforts. Sachin took up cricket at the age of eleven, practiced daily for countless hours, realised batting as his strength over bowling and focussed on his batting.His focus helped him to become more competitive, more consistent, and better player.

Mentors can Help to Put Efforts in the Right Direction

An individual can be talented, but mentors can help him move in the right direction and avoid known mistakes based on their years of experience. They can come in form of family members, friends and professionals who are expert in the field. As his initial mentor, Ajit introduced Sachin to cricket.

Later, he took young Sachin to Ramakant Achrekar, a famous cricket coach at Shivaji Park, Mumbai. Achrekar Sir made Sachin to practice both in mornings and evenings. He used to put a one-rupee coin on the top of the stumps, and the bowler who dismissed Sachin would get the coin. If Sachin passed the whole session without getting dismissed, the coach would give him the coin. Most important thing, Sachin's coach never said "well played' to him as he didn't want Sachin to get complacent.

There Are no Shortcuts to Success

There is nothing like overnight success. Any successful person has hours, days and years of dedicated practice done before making any accomplishment. Sachin is the only player to have scored one hundred international centuries, the first batsman to score a double century in a One Day International, and the only player to complete more than 30,000 runs in international cricket. Though Sachin achieved many successes and scaled new heights in his cricket journey, his dedication for practice remained the same.

Achieving Small Targets Lead to Achieving Bigger Goals

Small achievements increase human motivation to achieve bigger goals. By setting attainable targets and achieving little victories over time, an individual's outlook becomes brighter and commitment grows stronger. Sachin's bigger goal was to win World Cup, but since childhood, he kept on achieving small targets, which seemed unachievable to others. For instance, in 1988, he was involved in an unbroken 664-run partnership with his friend and team-mate Vinod Kambli. The destructive pair reduced one bowler to tears and made the rest of the opposition unwilling to continue the game.

Create Your Portfolio of Strategies

Every strategy has its strengths and limitations. Portfolio of strategies means having multiple strategies to utilize their strengths based on response from opposition. Portfolio of strategies can be based on careful study of opposition and can be utilized by anticipating its moves in advance. During his career, Sachin has played on multiple fields in different conditions and has faced many excellent bowlers. As an example, he mentioned that knowing he would be facing Australian bowler, Shane Warne, he studied Warne's bowling carefully and planned his game strategy accordingly.

Appreciate Leadership Qualities in Others

Being a captain is a great honour. But along with managing team, it also demands focusing on your own game, strategizing whole game, experimenting in difficult situations, fulfilling the expectations of fans, coping up with expectations of media, dealing with players' selection and so on.

Even if captain tries his best to manage all the aspects, sometimes things can get a little out of hand. Sachin's tenure as captain of the Indian cricket team was not very successful. He not only acknowledged the challenges he faced, but also humbly acknowledged the strengths of other captains such as Dhoni, under whose captaincy, India won World Cup.

Bounce Back from Setbacks

It's not like that successful people have never failed in their lives. Successful people are the people who have learned to push themselves up higher after setbacks. Sachin faced numerous physical and emotional setbacks due to factors such as injuries, losing his father, facing criticism and humiliation during lost matchesand so on.

But instead of giving up, he continued his journey through both internal and external motivation. For example, when he made his test debut against Pakistan at the age of 16, even when he was badly hit on the nose by a bouncer bowled by Waqar Younis, he declined medical assistance, was focussed to play and continued to bat. Later, he mentioned in the movie that when he stopped enjoying his game and was thinking about retiring, Viv Richards encouraged him to continue his game.

Stay Hungry, Stay Humble

Staying hungry is an important element of self-improvement. Hunger helps an individual in getting better and be competitive. But along with staying hungry, it is important to stay humble.Humbleness helps in learning from your failures and prevents success from getting into head. Sachin's hunger helped him in preparing and winning numerous matches, but his humbleness helped him in winning billions of people's hearts. As an example of his humbleness, in his goodbye speech, he thanked each and every person, who helped him in his career journey in various ways.

Supporters Remind You of Your Responsibility

Enthusiastic and vocal supporters of someone or something can come in various forms such as family members who sacrifice and pray for an individual's success, mentors who guide during multiple occasions, investors who provide funds, team members who contribute, media that backsup an individual's success, customers who buy products and fans who take inspiration from an individual's journey.

Sachin always practiced and played at his level best as he understood his responsibility towards hopes and expectations of his supporters. During his farewell speech, Sachin mentioned that chant of "Sachin-Sachin' by his supporters reminded him of his responsibility.

Chase Your Dream

Chasing your dream requires a lot of persistence and many people give up rather than persisting. Sachin saw a dream of holding World Cup when India won World Cup in 1983 and he was 11 years old. His faced many ups and downs during his journey, but he continued to chase his dream and eventually he was able to hold World Cup in 2011.

(Views expressed are author's personal and don't necessarily represent any company's opinions.)