Team siliconindia

• Adani urged students to choose conviction over caution, and create their own success stories in uncertain times.
• He shared how belief in possibilities transformed an inaccessible marshland into India’s largest commercial port.
• Emphasized that real leadership lies in charting new paths where no precedents or clear roadmaps exist.

Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani urged students of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow to prepare themselves for a future that will be far more unpredictable and challenging than what they experience in classrooms. Addressing management students and faculty, Adani emphasized the need for courage, leadership, and the willingness to chart new paths when faced with unprecedented situations.

“The future is messy, uncertain, and often brutal. And this is what you must be prepared to face”, he said, adding that leadership demands conviction over caution, consequence over comfort, creation over conformity, and conscience over convenience.

Sharing insights from his own entrepreneurial journey, Adani highlighted that success is rarely about flawlessly executing existing business models. “The real world is made up of moments that have no precedent. When data is ambiguous, business models break down, and the road ahead is unmarked, success is not defined by how well you studied your business cases it is defined by your ability to make your own story a case study,” he said.

He encouraged students to move beyond conventional thinking, reminding them that history is shaped by those who dare to create new pathways. “Looking back, I can tell you that every meaningful journey I have taken has faced moments where my resources ran dry and my support systems failed. Only one thing always remained with me the burning conviction that my bold dreams were worth the struggle”, he noted.

Recalling a pivotal moment in his career, Adani spoke about the challenges his group faced while developing Mundra port in Gujarat. At the time, the site was an inaccessible marshland, and no banker was willing to finance the project. “Some bankers laughed and asked, ‘Mr Adani, how do you expect us to finance land that is under water?’ And they were not wrong. Mundra had no access, no industry, no precedent,” he said.

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Adani explained that his vision was not about convincing financiers to invest in land, but in a possibility no one had yet explored. “Maps will only take you where someone has already been. But to build something truly new, you need a compass that points to the possibilities. My compass of conviction pointed me to Mundra”, he said.

Today, he noted, that once desolate marshland is home to India’s largest commercial port a testament to the power of conviction and resilience.