M.S.Dhoni – Mr Cool And More..

Mahendra Singh Dhoni one of the best Indian cricket captains of all time. Often called as one of the greatest finishers in limited-overs. The inventor of the helicopter shot, Mr.cool and so often called the best captain by the bests Indian cricket has ever seen including Sachin Tendulkar. We thought, we would dedicate a post compiling his achievements and of course the life story and what an inspiration he has been to us all.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• He is the Indian captain with the most wins in Tests and ODIs.

• Second Indian captain after Kapil Dev to have won a World Cup and the first one to win ICC World Twenty 20 trophy.

• Honoured with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by Indian Territorial Army.

• Recipient of Padma Shri( India’s fourth highest civilian honour)

• Recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (India’s highest honour for the achievements in sports)

• De Montfort University of England honoured with a doctorate degree.

• M S Dhoni: The Untold Story, a biopic is on its way to make it to the cinemas.

History – Life Before and Towards Cricket

M S Dhoni is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic cricketers of the Indian team. Call it the pressure of captaincy or the pressure of playing at the limited-overs, he sure doesn’t let it affect his performance. How can one forget India’s 2011 World Cup Win under his captaincy?

A boy who started his sports as a football goalkeeper was once approached to play as a cricket wicket-keeper due to the absence of the wicket keeper for the local match and what happened later is the tale of Dhoni and his love for the game, cricket. Dhoni even worked as a train ticket examiner (TTE) in the Indian Railways. Whenever, he talks about cricket, he reflects his patriotism for the country and he even has a desire to serve the Indian army after his retirement from cricket.

So many facets for a man and we have had deepest respects for Dhoni for the kind of person he has been, his calm demeanour, the way he maintains himself on and off the field, the presence of mind, the ownership and responsibility he takes and so much more that can keep us awe inspired.

M S DHONI INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

His words speak a lot about his attitude towards the game and his life. Here is a collection of his quotes,

I believe in giving more than 100% on the field, and I don’t really worry about the result if there’s great commitment on the field. That’s victory for me.

It may sound very naive when someone says focus on the work at hand and the goal will work out for itself. It might also sound that Dhoni is taking a line from the fabled Karmayoga which says focus on the work and the fruits of labour will find a way for themselves.

But on the other hand, so many times we are so focused on the end result that we actually forget what has to be done and how we go about doing that. We will be so caught up in the results that we often forget that we have to do all the hard work necessary to get to that result. Whether it is Dhoni saying it or Karmayoga, no one can dispute the fact that actions matter and they are going to drive us towards the results. The more we are focused on that, the better a shot we have at achieving success on our project of focus.

You may earn whatever money you earn as a cricketer, but you want to play for your country. At the end of the day, you want to do something special. There are plenty of people who earn 50 crores or 100 crores as businessmen or big professionals or who are really doing well in business. But what gives pleasure to your mom and dad is the fame.

This coming from a man who was rated among the top 50 highest earning professional sportsmen as coined by the forbes list. Sometimes people say that it is very easy to talk about money when you have a lot of it. Even Bill gates at some point said that it is the same hamburger whether you earn a million dollars or less. But I think there is an underlying message beyond that here.

Dhoni might call it fame or satisfaction in keeping the people you love very happy. But we would like to call it a sense of fulfilment, a sense of the purpose of our life as to what we want to do. We have always said that the WHY’s in life matter a lot  more than the how cos we can always figure that out. No matter what our reasons are, we all need to explain and tell ourselves why we do what we do. It is not money, it never is and never will be. The reasons need to be a little stronger than that to drive you towards success in life.

No. I am on national duty. Everything else can wait.

That’s a kind of commitment you would like to hear from someone who is on the centrestage of both the media and the sporting domain. The first image that comes to my mind when someone says this is a person in uniform, a person in the army fighting for the nation.

But I would like to point out the sense of association and pride here, what the game or his profession means to him. If we look within and ask ourselves what the game means to us and what we do means to us, I think we will find some really good answers and also a purpose for what we do.

I am not sure what we recommend here – whether to be completely in trance with the job at hand or a balance with your personal life. If you are a regular reader here, you know that our side is always towards the balance aspect, but the kind of commitment which is offered by Dhoni and the conviction in this statement speaks for itself

I don’t study cricket too much. Whatever I have learned or experienced is through cricket I’ve played on the field, and whatever little I have watched.

This is for all the theorists out there who have a single formula for success. I hate it when people simplify success and say that you have to do X,Y and Z in life and you will be immensely successful. We all are grown up here and we all know how false that is. I am not even sure if there was a better lie ever told. But they sure did a good job at it and ended up fooling a whole lot of people.

We know that life is beyond these theories. Life is when we step out and make things matter. It is not about taking a philosophical stand and not doing anything about it. It is about setting ourselves into action. It is about putting ourselves to the test and making things count. And we can theorize or obsess over it. Nothing is going to come out of it unless we step out.

I am sure there are a lot of commentators out there who can analyze the ball better than Dhoni, but I doubt if they do an equally good job at playing it.

I never allow myself to be pressured.

What happens to you is a circumstance. What you do out of what happens to you is a choice. I have no doubt that we all have hundreds of pressures in our lives and we all wonder what to do and it is very hard not to take stress. Although we did make an elaborate post on Stress free life and 9 Elegant Solutions for a Tension free life,it will be a lie to say that we never get tensed.

It is a regular part of our lives and what we do about it matters a lot and how we tackle it matters a lot. The whole mindset towards a project at hand and how we deal with it defines how we are going to handle the stress or the pressures of life. I think of all the celebrities we have encountered, this might be one man who really stands up for it and really means what he says. It sure is a greater goal to stand with cos the more we allow things to pressurize us, the more we will caught up in it.

For me, it’s important to build good partnerships rather than score centuries. Once, you have those partnerships, you will also get centuries.

The Bigger Picture! Isn’t that all life is about? It is important to build good relationships, people make a lot of difference in our lives and we need to make sure that we have the good ones around us. It doesn’t matter how much you achieve in life if you are going to be alone in life. The longevity of life is not in crossing off the achievements in your list. It is more about sharing your life with the people who matter to you.

I may be using a different metaphor here, but it is just a metaphor and we all know that life matters a lot more than that. People are important, people make or break our lives and people make a difference.

One of my theories is to be captain on the field and off the field, you need to totally enjoy each other’s company. I don’t like discussing cricket off the field.

It is important to separate our personal and professional lives. It is important to maintain that balance and not to be caught up in the daily headaches of life. There are things that demand our attention all the time and at the same time, those very things ask you to detach yourself from them.

We all lead a high pressure life and we all would love to maintain that zen within us. But it all has to start somewhere. Somewhere in our lives we need to segregate the things that bother us from the things that make us happy. Somewhere we need to make sure that the energy for one is not dependent on the other. For above all, it is our life which is a lot more important than anything else and we need to make sure it gets the best.

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