When you wrap up a project of this complexity, you realize how many people you are indebted to.

First of all, the thinkers who I have learnt a lot from. I am a voracious reader and although I have never met any of them, their books have had a significant influence. I owe a debt of gratitude to Marshall Goldsmith, Daniel Goleman, Daniel Pink, Mark Manson, James Clear, Jordan Peterson, Naval Ravikant, Tim Ferriss, and Martin Seligman.

I’d like to thank my students who gave me the opportunity to teach, mentor, and yes to learn from over a decade’s time. Their journey kicked off my voyage of discovery and into the wonderland of learning, failure, resilience, and success. Quite a few of them were kind enough to review the early version of the manuscript and give me detailed advice on what should and should not be in the book. Special mention of Dhruv Sharma, CFA, Dominic James, CFA and Femina Huddani, CFA. The book got better thanks to your feedback.

In my authoring journey, I encountered the concept of Mental Toughness and attended a three-day course on Mental Toughness (‘MT’) way back in 2013 facilitated by the brilliant Dr. John Perry who has since become a good friend and a guest on my Real Finance Mentor podcast. Discussions with him always provide food for thought.

Doug Strycharczyk of AQR, the co-author of the concept of MT, was kind enough to review this book and give some useful comments. Doug is highly experienced and a good guy with a raft of positive traits (too long to mention here!) and I always look forward to our occasional chats.

Adnan Dawood and I worked in the same company—Nakheel, the iconic Dubai real estate developer—during 2004-2007. Post Nakheel, we were in touch when Adnan was in Dubai, and whenever we met his first question was always, “Binod, where is your book?” Thanks dude, for the support and relentless follow up. This book is partly to save me from further embarrassment.

I am grateful to my co-founder at Genesis Institute, Mohit Malhotra, for his encouragement. I still recall Mohit gifting me a Cross pen on my birthday in May 2017 with a handwritten card saying “I would also like it to be the start of your inspirational writing career. Enjoy this historic pen and create history.” Every time I looked at the pen, it was another reminder to get going and finish the book.

This book would not have made it to your hands without the support of my India-based publishers 16Leaves. I was introduced to 16Leaves post a bad experience with a self-publisher. So, my initial attitude was understandably skeptical. But, my calls with Bharat Parthasarathy, the Founder of 16Leaves reassured me and the subsequent experience with each team member I dealt with was exceptional. Bidisha Dutta, my editor, triggered me via multiple discussions into taking a ruthless second view six months after writing the book, thereby spotting and rectifying any irrelevant or unclear content, overlaps, insufficient detail, lack of proper flow etc. A lot of credit must go to Bidisha for her calm, patient, responsive & wise counsel. Arti Walia took over from Bidisha. Ms. Walia is a publishing veteran, and her mature, flexible approach took it to the finish line. Managing all this was my first point of contact at 16Leaves, Deepali Sawant with her relentless positivity, laser-like focus and flexibility, occasionally nudging me and materializing the publishing of the book. Publishing is an industry with its unique processes and options. Getting your first book published is quite a complex and time-consuming undertaking. So, it’s reassuring to have a team that is dedicated and experienced to guide you.

A big shout out to Deepak Mehra. Deepak is a veteran banker, published author, and also a guest on my podcast. He has been generous with his time and advice.

A word of appreciation goes to all my horrible bosses (including bosses’ bosses). Although interacting with them helped me experience some or all of the stress, fear, and frustration, I learnt a lot and hence matured as a person and a professional. A hat tip also to my terrible juniors I came across especially during my entrepreneurship journey. All of you unintentionally gave me a shipload of invaluable content for this book.

The simple but striking cover of this book owes its creation to the artistic duo of Huzaifa Maimoon and Murtaza Mustafa.

A big thumbs up to my mom Ms. Sarojini Shankar, retired college professor, published author, speaker, mentor, role model, and much more and still going strong at the age of 88. She introduced me to non-academic books when I was eight (Reader’s Digest, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, etc.) and I never lost my love for the power of the written word. She also always appreciated my command of the language (often publicly) and didn’t mind me locking myself away for hours to read, all of which helps hugely when you are young. There’s of course a lot more to thank her for.

Finally, thank you, dear reader, for spending a few precious hours of your life to read this book. I hope it was worth it.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

December 2022