Live India, Love Football

Those of you that have been reading this blog for the past few years would know that every once in awhile I veer slightly away from pure sport to share some insights and learnings from my spiritual practice.   My practice currently involves (almost) daily meditation, attending spiritual retreats from time to time and reading texts written by enlightened masters.   This journey started during my first retreat to Dharamsala back in 2011 and, since then, my practice has had an extraordinary impact in every area of my life. I was recently having a conversation with one of my spiritual mentors about a topic that I enjoy discussing: following one’s heart when it comes to career choices.   This is something that I’ve spoken about hundreds of times to individuals, to classrooms full of students and at conferences as I have somehow managed to follow my heart throughout my entire career which has filled my life with an abundance of job fulfillment, good friends, financial sec...

My first season as CEO of a professional football club is in the books.   It ended on a somewhat somber note as we gave up a 3-0 halftime lead to draw with Minerva Punjab 4-4, in a match where our opponents literally scored in the last second of the game.   While I was disappointed that we couldn’t end the season on a high with a dominating win at home, the frustration didn’t last nearly as long as it would have if this match was earlier in the year - this is all thanks to my on the job growth as a young football executive. This season was truly an emotional roller coaster.   We had some highs in the form of a 5-0 win at home against Mumbai FC in the Maha Derby and a 0-1 win away against Kolkata giants Kingfisher East Bengal.   Some of the lows consisted of a few injuries to some key players and losing 10 points by giving up goals in the last 5 minutes of 7 matches.   Overall, though, I’m pleased with the fact that we stuck with our vision as a youth deve...

The typical first response my wife gets when she asks some of her parents friends what they think of me is, “He’s such a sweet guy.” It’s not always my favourite (or the coolest) answer however it is much better than many other words that could have been used to describe their first impression of me.   So, over time and especially after marriage, I’ve just accepted that most people over the age of 50 think of me as a “sweet guy.” But recently something happened that I never expected, I’ve transformed into a “suite guy.”   I’ve been attending live sports matches ever since I was 5 years old and my little league baseball team would have outings to watch the then California Angles (now Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) play inside of the Big ‘A’. From there my live sports viewing journey took me to NFL, NBA, NHL, WWE, IPL, HIL, Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Minor League baseball, College sports, Motorsports and even Bull Fighting competitions not to mention the hundreds of l...