Success can not be earned when you keep counting your weakness; it is achieved when you convert these weaknesses into your biggest strengths. This is what we learn from Dr. Arvinder Singh’s life. He is one of the Directors and Chief Pathologist of the renowned Amolak Diagnostics Private Limited, Udaipur. Gold medalist from IIM Indore, Dr. Arvinder is success personified; he is rich, successful, dignified and sophisticated yet so humble and polite. He has an added magnetism to his personality and no body can even imagine that he has polio since he was eight months old.

I got a chance to meet Mr. Arvinder and interview him in his clinic. These are few excerpts from the interview.

Please tell us something about your family background?

My parents migrated from Pakistan and settled down in Lucknow. It is in Lucknow, where they completed their further studies, worked and then both retired as Principals of reputed schools in Lucknow. My sister (Dr. Sweety Chabbra, NYCC) and I are both born and bought up there.

What about your education?

I did my schooling from Khalsa College and MBBS from King George Medical College Lucknow and did my M. D. in Pathology from Kanpur Medical College. Before doing MD I took a two years break and prepared for IAS exams and even cleared the prelims. But as I was not able to get the desired job of my choice due to my disability, I decided to quit IAS and go for M.D.

Why did you choose medical as your profession and how did u come to settle down in Udaipur?

Regular rounds to hospitals, surgeries and frequent fractures due to polio kept me surrounded by doctors from a very early age. A Doctor appeared to me as a very powerful and successful public figure. This inspired me to become a Doctor myself.

I came to Udaipur in the year 1999 and met Dr. Rajendra Kachhawa (Director, Amolak Diagnostic). We planned and started off with this venture and this is how I happen to settle down here.

What other things interests you?

I have a passion for new and latest technology gadgets. Another obsession is palmistry and astrology and I am pursuing a correspondence course for the same.

What are the major challenges you faced while pursuing your career?

On the personal front, the major challenge was Polio because of which it becomes a little difficult for me to socialize with the people of Udaipur. As I was new to this place not many people knew about me so networking and socializing was really important. On the professional front- it was important to create awareness about Diagnostics in Udaipur.

And funds were a major hindrance, what started off with 10 to 15 lakhs is now worth 10 to 12 Crores.

Also after the big takeover by Piramal group in 2003, there were many challenges like adjustment to the new environment, resource allocation, etc. We finally took back Amolak recently in 2009.

From where do you derive strength to overcome all challenges?

Life has never been a cake walk for me; it was full of struggles and challenges. But what kept me going is my upbringing in a small middle class family and my high ambitions. My big ambitions and dreams always motivated me to work harder. Meditation and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) also acted as a source of strength and peace during bad times.

After MBBS and MD, why MBA?

I was very ambitious, always fascinated towards management and wanted to make it big at the national level. There were lot of new developments and changes taking place in the Diagnostics chain and in order to mange all of these there was a need of trained mangers, so I went do MBA from IIM Indore.

How was your experience at IIM Indore?

Tough and challenging! The subjects were completely new as I was from the medical stream. I faced a lot of problem with mathematics, as I was not from this background.  But again my dream for doing something big kept me going. My hard work and determination made me the first doctor in history of IIM Indore to bag gold medal.

All in all it was a memorable experience.

What changes have you experienced in yourself and your working style after completing MBA?

(Smiling) IIM made me a better manger. Now I know where to hit and what to hit. For instance in the beginning, when I got into IIM I had a dream of becoming the CEO of some big company. I even received some really lucrative offers like 90 lakh package from Royal Victoria Hospital, Scotland and around 13 to 14 more offers. But at the time of completion of my course I realized that being an entrepreneur was far more rewarding so I came back to Udaipur and continued with Amolak.

What are your views about the present education system in India?

According to me it’s a very traditional and mediocre system. It is completely percentage and marks based. Role of education is to make people intelligent, make them better decision makers and make them aware about their surroundings. But marks and percentage increase pressure and stress. Success can be achieved in various fields like sports, music, dance etc. Merely marks can not determine success. Emphasis should be laid on identifying strengths and qualities and then working on them.

What is your message to our readers?

No body is perfect. It is very important for a person to do strength and weakness analysis. Everybody should examine what he or she can do and what they can not. Another important thing is, to do planning and putting that plan into action. Because I feel that no plan is perfect and one examines the loop holes and weakness only after implementation of the plan. One saying that inspires me the most and I would like to share it with you all is “Set your Goals, else you will work for the persons who have set their goals”