If you give your heart and soul and never give up, things can happen for you.”
Kalpana Saroj (1961) is an Indian businesswoman and Tedx speaker who is currently the CEO of Kamani Tubes in Mumbai, India. She was born into a poor Dalit Buddhist family in a small town of Roperkheda in Maharashtra, India. Married at the age of 12, she moved to the slums of Mumbai with her husband’s family, where she was verbally, physically and emotionally abused by her in-laws. Her father saved her again and decided to bring her back to town. She tries to join the police, nursing school, and even the military, but fails. She tried to commit suicide by consuming three bottles of pesticides after the villagers didn’t like her, but her aunt saved her and took her to the local hospital. Her failed suicide attempt made her stronger, recharged and empowered.
At the age of 16, he returned to Mumbai to live with his uncle and started working in a garment factory as a tailor’s assistant for just £2 a day. Using Mahatma Jyotibai Phule’s government scheme for scheduled caste people, he successfully started a tailoring business and later a furniture store. He later built a successful real estate business. Impressed with her entrepreneurial skills, the Kamani Tubes workers’ union approached her to take charge of getting the company back on track. When the company went into liquidation in 2001, she was on the board of Kamani tubes, and after taking over the company, she restructured it and returned to profit. She is now the CEO of Kamani tubes and runs a 3 billion (Rs 300 crore) trading company with a personal asset valued at $112 million. She is a true example of a Slumdog Millionaire. In 2013, she received the Padma Shri in the field of Commerce and Industries and the 9th Rajiv Gandhi Award for Women Entrepreneurs in 2006.
life lesson – His life is truly a rags to riches story that motivates us to reach our goals. As she said, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.” We all make mistakes in our lives, but true winners learn from them. They see their failures as a springboard and not as an obstacle to success. They learn from their experiences, which makes them a better and stronger person. Adversity makes them tough and helps them make sense of their own lives. Research has also revealed that adversity brings us closer to our goals, it strengthens us mentally, emotionally, and physically, it empowers us to deal more creatively, it encourages us to appreciate even small blessings, it prepares us to accept the worst, it makes us more emphatic than sympatric and offers meaning to our lives.
