Live India, Love Football

At the moment, the Indian sports industry does not require more sports management education institutes to be established or short courses and executive programs to be launched.  This trend has taken India by storm over the last few years.  While I am thrilled that the birth of these institutes and courses reflect the growing demand for sports management as a career option, I cannot confidently say that they are all serving the industry or the student.  This statement is not meant to be derogatory towards the universities, organizations and individuals that have launched these courses. Most offer the requisite amount of teaching hours, industry exposure and internship opportunities to pass students through the course and attempt to launch them into the sporting ecosystem. However, what is missing in many of the sports management programs I have researched is a robust and customized mentorship program.       The Indian sports industry is still a developi...

I have been working in the sports industry for the past twenty years. Like many other sectors, there are certain sports industry words that are just tossed around over and over again. Words like ‘ecosystem,’ or ‘authentic,’ or ‘engagement.’ One word commonly used but rarely understood is the word ‘grassroots.’ The dictionary definition of grassroots is the most basic level of an activity or organization.  Grassroots sports can be defined as community-driven sports activity at a local level that is mainly recreational, rather than being about achieving high levels of performance or commercial success. Investing in grassroots sports is regularly posited as the answer to the challenges facing the development of sport within a country or region. I heard this commonly held belief during my years working at MLS as it related to supporting the growth of soccer in North America. Here in India, football stakeholders who are desperate to grow the beautiful game in the country sound like bro...

I am a self-development junkie. I have been for the past fifteen years.  I remember registering for my first Landmark Education course in New York City in 2006.  It was an intense three and a half day journey where we were guided to look into our past to identify why we are the way we are. Essentially, to discover what makes our monkey mind say what it says to us so that we no longer have to be controlled by it or, possibly, even transform its narrative. During the course, I endured many emotionally jarring self-reflection exercises, forced paired sharing, and multiple assignments over eleven hour days, and I soaked it all up.  I guess it is just how I am wired. I love exploring areas in my life that are working and those that are not, and tapping into principles, exercises, and tools to further develop myself.  This initial Landmark Education forum kickstarted a self-work obsession that has lasted for a decade and a half, leading me to enroll in retreats, courses, w...

There are some achievements that, for us regular people, just feel so good to share with the world. These are feats that have been unequivocally agreed upon by the general public to be considered impressive. I am a sucker for regularly being considered impressive. Finding ways to ‘innocently’ slip into a dinner party conversation that, “I ran the New York and Mumbai full marathons,” or “I did Vipassana in 2020,” or “I have delivered two TEDx talks.” I know…it is sad that I care so much for external validation that I would run forty-two kilometers across a city, or meditate in silence for ten straight days, or spend months preparing for an eighteen-minute talk. But that is just how I am wired. Slight joking aside, though, these were some of the most remarkable experiences of my life – each of which I have described in detail in earlier blog posts.   But I digress. The message that I am trying to communicate is that many humans use the power of achievement to stand apart from, o...

For the majority of my life, I  did not consider myself to be a creative person. My family and friends would laugh at my feeble attempts to draw a coherent picture, and I could not sing or play an instrument, act, or dance to save my life.  And even though I was a capable writer, I discarded any idea of owning my creativity as I mistakenly limited this term to only include forms of art, music, drama, and dance.     Then, as I went deeper into my athletic pursuits, I moved further away from creativity and the desire to be thought of as a creative person. I was happy to be known as an athlete and never admired or wanted to emulate the creative individuals at school as, to me, they represented a different breed of people. This continued through my twenties and well into my thirties. The more I excelled in sports, the less I felt inclined to immerse myself into anything remotely creative.   As the saying goes, “Whatever you resist, persists.” This is exact...

We all have goals, aspirations and dreams.  They are what gets us up in the morning, what has us feel fulfilled, what gives a sense of purpose and meaning to our lives.  When not pursued, though, they can leave us feeling hollow and empty, or create a vacuum in our hearts that sucks our creative energy, confidence and worthiness into a black hole. This sounds extreme, but we have all been there. For many of us, Covid-19, its associated lockdowns and extended periods of ‘work from home’ has taken these positive feelings to new heights or the negative ones to depressing lows.   When it comes to your goals, aspirations and dreams, the way to ensure constant motivation and momentum is by first being aware of the dream killers.  These killers are mischievous, cunning and grow in power the more you surrender to their sneak attacks. They portray themselves as friends, people only looking out for your best interest when, in reality, they merely want you to put an end to...

On the adoption spectrum, I have always fallen exactly in between middle adopters and late adopters for pretty much any innovation that becomes mainstream. This was the case for my relationship with the iPod, iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Kindle and earbuds. I cannot pinpoint why I choose to wait until most of my larger community of family, friends and peers have made something a part of their daily lives for me to consider exploring the idea of it becoming a part of mine. The funny thing, though, is that once I do embrace the innovation, I usually become the loudest and most vocal ambassador for it within my circles.   The latest innovation that I have mid-to-late adopted is podcasts. Podcasts have been around for years, and I just never had any interest or curiosity about this form of acquiring information or being entertained.  Primarily because I have always preferred listening to music on my headphones when I was running, in my car, walking through a city, or...

The term ‘one-trick pony’ means a person or thing with only one special feature, talent, or area of expertise. It is typically not considered a term of affection in the way that words like ‘specialist’ or ‘master’ are used to describe someone. Given this, over the past two decades of working in the sports industry, I have made a conscious effort to develop a diverse set of skills to contribute to the organizations I am employed by and the industry at-large. But now, for the first time, I have realized that for most of my career I was, in fact, a first-class ‘one-trick pony.’  Let me explain. Yes, I worked at a professional football league, ran a professional football club, and held senior positions with three agencies over a period of twenty years. While the city (or country), scope of responsibilities, and context of my work have been unique in each role, the subject matter was primarily the same: football. It has always been football, my best friend, my first love, my companion, ...

For the past twenty years, I’ve started most of my weekdays and many weekends traveling to an office, meeting, or the airport for a business trip. And over these two decades, I have rarely had to think about productivity as my environment compelled me to always be in action.  When I would wake up in my New York City home, even on a frigid winter morning, I didn’t have time to decide whether or not to be productive. I just had to jump out of bed, get ready, and take the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan to ensure that I made it to my daily 9:00 am status meeting. I did this for seven straight years.  Then, while residing in India for the past eleven years, the subway trains may have been replaced by chauffeur driven cars in Delhi and Pune or an Uber in Mumbai. Still, the action was always the same: get myself to work for my morning meeting or to the airport to catch a flight.  And once I am ‘on the pitch,’ I don’t have to overthink as the energy around me drives me forward...