What do you call a man who hates to lose? A winner? That is too easy, too glib, and buries the story. All Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani ever wanted to be is the biggest there ever is, the best there ever was. He wanted a piece of the action — preferably all of it. If others wouldn’t let him in, he would create his own turf and own it all.
Ambani is actually a businessman, but his career is so extraordinary that he is more than just a businessman, more than even an industrialist.He is a folk hero to millions of Indians, even those who are not businessmen, or do not aspire to a business career.And that is why Dhirubhai Ambani is so special, just as Mahatma Gandhi was something more than a politician and Indira Gandhi was more than a prime minister.
These people are not born every day. I rank Dhirubhai along with the Gandhis, because all of them moved the entire country in a certain direction. Without the Mahatma, we would still be under the British. Without Indira, the country would have been torn apart into quasi independent fiefdoms, the kind we had before the Britishers arrived here. And without Dhirubhai, we would not have learnt how to think big, not in terms of a small factory here and there, but in terms of giant plants, as big as anywhere in the world and as modern as they come. Dhirubhai taught India to think big, because, as he used to say, ours is a big country and if we do not think big, we shall never be able to attain our potential.
It is not easy to think big in India. We are so worried about the next meal that there is no time for anything else. For the last thousand years we have not thought big at all, though the Marathas under Shivaji did try. We can think only of the next meal, the next pay cheque, the next job, the next election. We can never think of the day after tomorrow, let alone the year after tomorrow, or the generation after the next. We are so poor that everything tends to be short-term, small and trifling, and almost always temporary and short-lived.
How did Dhirubhai learn to think big? He was a son of a village teacher in a small place in Gujarat and was sent to Mumbai as a boy of fifteen or so, as there were no jobs for him in his village. He was then packed off to Aden, where he worked on as a petrol pump attendant. Later, he went on to East Africa where he also worked in an oil company, also as an assistant before he returned to India for good.
Hundreds of Indians must have done the same thing. But you don’t hear of anyone, except Ambani. I know at least two persons who also worked on petrol pumps and later became company executives. Ambani also could have become one.But he didn’t. When he returned to Bombay, he started his own yarn dealership, in a small 10 by 10 room in Mulji Jetha market, for which he paid an exorbitant rent of 150 rupees a month, just because it had a telephone.
As a yarn merchant, he used to go from one dealer to another and also to purchase agents of the big textile companies in Mumbai, most of whom have now shut up shop or gone bankrupt. Ambani still remembers them and calls them his sheths. But how is it that Dhirubhai went on to chemicals from textiles, and from there to petrochemicals and then to oil exploration?
Ambani was thinking big even when he was small. His company, Reliance Industries, went public in 1977, if I remember right, when the turnover was around Rs 100 crore, not a great deal of money even 25 years ago. This was about the time I met him for the first time. He was still a small man, though he was being watched carefully by people in Mumbai. But what I remember about him is that he was thinking not of his 100-crore business, not how to make it to 200 crore, but, believe it or not, how to take his company to the top and overtake Tata Steel, then the biggest company in the private sector, a position it had acquired after over sixty years in the business. He was not only thinking big, he had solid plans to go big and push ahead of Tata Steel. I still have a copy of a xeroxed table he had prepared with projections of likely sales of leading Tata companies, including Tata Steel and Tata Engineering, which were the leading companies then.He had projections for his own company, Reliance, and he had said that he would catch up with them in six or seven years time. The timing is not important. It is the thinking behind it that is. For Ambani, textiles was only a beginning of his dreams.He had worked out in his mindscape what he would do five, ten, fifteen years from now, and he had formed a complete strategy for doing what he wanted to do.
Dhirubhai was never a big talker. But after a good lunch of curried prawns and rice, and some icecream for dessert, he would relax in his office, and he would talk about this and that, until it was time for him to go back to work, or for me to leave. He was then still in textiles and did not have a single chemicals plant. I asked him how he knew so much about the synthetics industry and all those chemicals with fancy names which only a qualified chemicals engineer would know. “It is simple,” he would say. “I meet lots of people and read lots of literature. And I know exactly how to go from this to that point, and do what I want to do.”
Ambani rarely talked about money, though that was supposed to be his forte. He was known in the market as a financial wizard. He raised Rs.7,500 crore in all for his business, huge amount even for a man like Ambani.
The only person who comes close to Dhirubhai as a great achiever is surprisingly a Tata- not JRD but the great Jamsetji Tata, whom he resembles in many ways. Both started as yarn dealers and both spent their earlier years in a foreign country – Tata in Hong Kong and Dhirubhai in Aden and East Africa. But they did not follow the same business route. Tata started at the top with a steel plant in Bihar and a hydro-electric installation near Mumbai. Dhirubhai started at the bottom with a small weaving mill and ended up with an oil refinery. Tata did not live long enough to do what he wanted to do, but men after him have gone on with an engineering plant in Bihar which uses Tata Steel’s products. Dhirubhai is now a petroleum man, not a textile man, for textiles account for only 2 per cent of his total turnover of over Rs.60,000 crores.
But there the resemblance ends. Tatas took nearly a hundred years to achieve what they did. Dhirubhai, twice as big, took just about 40 years to do what he has done. The Ambanis are now nearly twice as big as Tatas and growing also at twice their rate. Where did Dhirubhai learn to think big? He did not learn anything from his business contemporaries because there was nothing to learn. I think he was born thinking big. It was second nature to him, otherwise how could a man in a 10 ft by 10 ft office hawking yarn end up as the owner of a huge petrochemical plant and an equally huge oil refinery? He was a restless soul who simply had to do what he did, because that was his compulsion. Everything else came afterwards, as it does when you know what you are going to do, though not how you are going to do it.If the first half of the 20th century belonged to Tatas, the second half belonged to Dhirubhai Ambani and if he lives long enough, the first half of the 21st century will also belong to him. Dhirubhai Ambani is indeed a man of two centuries!
Source: Free Press Journal
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Be Inspired
Plan well before you take the journey. Remember the carpenter’s rule: Measure twice, cut once.
February 7th, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
good and inspiring!
May 22nd, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
you guys gonna read about me in future ..inshallah more that Ambani mark it…
June 4th, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa great man i want become like him n i will be
June 4th, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
June 25th, 2008 @ 6:17 am
I am in problems in settling my life in canada and Mr. Ambanis article has motivated me from inside and i am more confidant to face challenges ahead.
August 4th, 2008 @ 6:03 am
PEOPLE ARE TALKING CORRUPTION OFDHIRUBHAI WHAT ABOUT OTHERS DID NOT THEY DID THE SAME THING WITH OTHER WAY AND MEAN.HE WAS INDEED ATRUE MAN WHO DARED TO TALK OPENLY OF ALL THESE THINGS.
August 7th, 2008 @ 8:34 am
hi this is vandana,i am just 19 years old n i started working since i was 17.i am damn inspired by dhirubhai ambani bcoz he is my role model..i have never seen a person who is so ambitious.whenever i feel like i am loosing i remember him and give more efforts and i win …bt now i dream of competing him and bringing a new revolution in the country.i am sure i ‘ll win becoz dhirubha ambani is my inspiration and i’ll be the next tycoon…..
August 23rd, 2008 @ 8:07 am
i am deeply touched by the dhirubhai story when i read that before leaving for aden he used to sell pakoras at girnar.i think, there can not be anyone else in 21st centuary to break his record.India needs few more to take it to top and should be celebarating 28th December as inspiration day for all.
August 30th, 2008 @ 7:15 am
I am very impressed by the coverstory of dhirubhai ambani.He was really a person who build his empire in a short time by lots of efforts and become successful.He is my ideal .
September 7th, 2008 @ 11:30 am
This is the first time I visited this site, the content is rich and inspiring.
September 10th, 2008 @ 8:04 pm
Dhiru bhai is such a inspirational personality… There are many more Dhiru Bhai’s to come and conquer the world. One of them is me……
September 12th, 2008 @ 6:03 am
i dont have any word for this man
i just want sulute this great man
and all indian young generation
lesson for this ambani ji how to
bussiness.
thanx
dashrath k rathod
October 2nd, 2008 @ 5:32 am
ROCKINGGGGGGGGG !!!!
October 20th, 2008 @ 8:55 am
joseph
October 20th, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
I AM REALLY IMPRESED WITH MR. AMBANI HE WAS VERY HARD WORKER AND HE HAS ACHIVED THE GOAL WHATEVER HE HAD THOUGHT HE WAS A GREAT VISINORY. THANKS
November 17th, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
December 2nd, 2008 @ 5:39 am
I heard Dhirubhai also did some unethical things to sell his products, from low to extreme, that i would not take it Dhirubhai sorrie
December 28th, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
Great man
February 11th, 2009 @ 7:22 am
Really i got inspired, after read about Dir Ambani really it was a great great acheivement….. My intention is to take his biography to all people because if once people knows about him iam pretty sure they will win over those life as well as become a great leader, if time permits…. I decided my roll model is the king Mr.Dirubhai Ambani from this moment……..
Great man, thanks god for this oppurtunity to say about the king of Business (hardworker)
Hats off to his Parents…
sugmar
February 13th, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
Wow!!! This is an inspiring article indeed. Dhirubhai ambani is a person from whom each and every person living in india can take inspiration from. He is success personified and is the path breaker of all times. He is the perfect example of a person from “rags to riches” and has proved to the entire world that if a person thinks big and if he works day and night towards it, he can make the impossible, possible. So I believe that one should think big, dream big and march towards his destination. I swear to God that one day will make it much bigger than Shri Dhirubhai by not only dreaming big but also by working very hard.
February 14th, 2009 @ 8:35 am
Dhirubhai did many unfair trade practices in the beginning, how he can become a great man? a great man is who who do not do any golmaal, his son anil and mukesh are also doing the same, HUT BE TAKLE
February 23rd, 2009 @ 11:06 am
every indian should achive like ambani
March 19th, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
What Junk??
Are you rewriting history or what??
Without the Mahatma, we would still be under the British. almost all of the countries annexed and that had colonial rule was granted independence. ” Save one South Africa” <—Which was still being looted for its precious diamond and natural wealth (The barbaric westerns still looting the old world).
Where is the contribution of Sardar Vallabh Patel,
if Indira Gandhi was …………as u have mentioned.
Well Dhirubhai has his version of success story but not for any comparision……..
But the Comparisions betweeen how Tata have built over 100 years and Ambanis over 40’s etc etc ….. is ridiculus..
Example : Indian Institute of Science : Is still known in the vicinity and people as TATA institute. Set up by the Tatas is now 100 yrs old. where the entry is neither by High fees or Donation. Can u quote one such example for the Ambanis
Thats just an example.
Get you information right in many context and write a article.
Bye
VDK
May 28th, 2009 @ 9:12 am
well i m a business student doing my m.b.a . dhirubhai is my corporate ideal from my schooldays .great concept… about great man…. when u want success as badly u want the air to breathe ,then any how u will get it….this is my feeling about this great man.
i also want to b an entrepreneur like him…
June 30th, 2009 @ 3:45 pm
Ms.DIVYA DHARSINI Bsc., agri(dual degree) in NOVA SCOTIA,CANADA,MBA.,in IIM,
the future richest person in the world.I promise on LORD.RAMA.
June 30th, 2009 @ 3:47 pm
July 10th, 2009 @ 7:27 am
dhirubhai is my idol since my school days,i knew about him when he awarded with “man of century”award.His achivements are just beyond words.Dhirubhai teach us very important lesson that see beyond and break your circumtances.
August 8th, 2009 @ 11:26 am
he is my roll model.
August 8th, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
i read this story. as per my openian hard working is not enaf for success.because which one make road(labor) he is a big hard worker as per me.so with hard work we need over luck star support also.so
HARD WORK + LUCK = SUCCESS.
October 7th, 2009 @ 11:24 am
I salute the person who inspired a lot of person.And what actually want to say is that one can do anything what he desire but required a starting……….. then you will see it was easy and anyone can do because I have done . What I have done is not so big and I am trying to do more and more where there will no restriction in my endless desire………………………………………………………………………………………… thanks to give me a space in website thanks a lot again.
October 8th, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
I salute u Mr. Dhirubhai ambani…. u r my role model.
My name is vijay , but yet now i have never won in any way or any thing and the reason behind that is also meee….. i promise myself to be a smart and hard worker always….
October 8th, 2009 @ 3:22 pm
1900 dhiru bhai
2000 dhamanibhai
October 21st, 2009 @ 12:47 am
I appriciate Ambaniji for his graet achivement but somewhere i feel sorry for him, i think he forgot about teaching his two sons to love each other and keep peace within them, or to teach them how to take all what he achieved in a more lightening manner. he was busy with his dreams that he 4got all this or did he?
November 4th, 2009 @ 6:16 pm
So inspiring……
I’m trying to achieve something great for which i’ll be known.
I don’t judge whether he received what he have through correct or incorrect method, because it is not an easy task to double the business what Tata has in one lifetime.
I salute you…..
November 19th, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
“Without the Mahatma, we would still be under the British”
When do Indians realise that British couldn’t afford to continue ruling India due to 2nd World War calamity.
Read the auto biography of Gandhi. He was not even present in Delhi during the take over ceremony on Aug 15
November 24th, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
DHIRUBAHI AMBAI KA KHAWAB HAKIKHAT ME BADAL gya. I salute the person who inspired a lot of person.HARD WORK + LUCK = SUCCESS.
November 27th, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
nice
December 1st, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
Good and inspiring article. Hope we can also think big and make our life and country’s man life much better as we had and make a India a super power and a green country.
Sudhir
December 4th, 2009 @ 11:22 am
He was great man and inspired person to all Indians and role model of my life for ever. I will try my best to achive something like him.
December 5th, 2009 @ 6:02 am
When I was searching for real success story for ‘Think Big’ I came across Mr. Ambani’s life story. He deserves a big salute from me. Learnt to have a proper vision for success.
December 12th, 2009 @ 11:59 pm
Somebody said, that
“khud ko kar buland itna ki KHUDA khud bunde se poonchche ki bol teri kya raja hai”
maens if you can think then you can do bcoz you think for do so
“AMBANI BHAI” was the real example of big thinking we can say
“KING OF BIG THINKING”
i m really very appriciate with him………
i salute you my dear brother
“JAY HIND”
December 22nd, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
“A simple man with great ideas and proved himself what he think” we people only think big but dehrubhai had done it.
Why we people can’t do the things the Dheru Bhai had done, baz we think but our will power is not strong. So buddies get up it is not time for rest it is time for to go on the step of Dehru Bhai. “Winner don’t do different things they think differently”
VIJAY RATHOR RAMPUR UP
December 28th, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
i really like it….dats fuckin fab
January 8th, 2010 @ 3:50 pm
Dhirubhai Ambani was awesome! Will i be ever able to repeat the HISTORY? I am dame sure i will definitely. Thanks to Dhirubhai, Mukesh, Anil and Kokilalben Ambani and the entire reliance Fly for showing great path of success.
January 14th, 2010 @ 10:45 am
Hai friends i hope that u r familiar about the silver rials melted and casted as bars to sell for a little profit earned by ambani.Heused to grab the opportunites in flash.His famous quotes “no invitation for profit making”,”encircle ur orbit and break that to enter the higher the higher orbit and so on”.so let us follow his path and take a oath of making India a marvellous country one in globe. Jai dhirubhaism….jai ho