Have you ever felt as if all the doors closed around you and you were claustrophobic to the point of suffocating your own breath? Then everything you try, every step you take, proves to be incorrect. You become engulfed in a cloud of negativity. You feel duped and defeated. You recall a time when you…
I founded the Chahal Foundation when I was twenty-nine, because I wanted to make a difference, but I was naive enough to think it was easy since I didn’t know the first thing how. All I knew was that I had to act and do something. Somewhere along the way, we figured it out. This…
If there is one thing that we have learned from history…well, it’s absolutely nothing. Bubbles last so long as the smartest guys in the room can keep passing the baton to the next greater fool. Hence, the greater fool theory. We witnessed it in the late 1990s. The Internet was a wild west. Dotcoms raised…
Do you know it’s possible as an entrepreneur to lose all your hard-earned success? You could lose everything in the wink of an eye. I can imagine the horror that comes with that. Every one of my businesses is like a treasure to me. I dread losing them. That’s why I always aim for success. …
Sometimes life tests you beyond your limits. Take a deep breath and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Endure the pain. The pain only subsides until you decide to do something about it. In such times, you will feel empty as if no one is on your side. What you must realize: those that aren’t on…
While in India, Rubina and I heard news of panic from the scarce supply of face masks to protect individuals from contracting the corona virus. She insisted that we should directly bring the face masks to Hong Kong from Punjab. We contacted dozens of suppliers and struggled to find masks, as they too were starting to…
Most would-be entrepreneurs start off with a dream. But nine out of ten quickly discover that you need more than an idea and the simple wish to “make it big.” The failure rate is staggering because most people don’t grasp some essential truths. Since starting my first business in my bedroom at the age of…
Your morning alarm blasts you awake. You swear and hit the snooze button. You roll over for a few more minutes of sleep. And then, in what seems to be a nano-second, it rings again. You know you can’t ignore it this time and reluctantly haul yourself out of bed. Does this sound like you?…
Be authentic. Be the person you were born to be. Don’t waiver. Don’t get cajoled into wandering off the righteous path in your life journey because of short-term temptations and inducements. Stay on course. Be true to yourself. You came into this world as a unique original. There was no-one else like you. From your…
In 2013, I first wrote The Happiness Startup, Rules to Live By, a post that went viral and still to date is one of my favorite posts. A year later, I continued the message with The Happiness Startup, Part Deux. Now 5 years later, I decided to write the third act of The Happiness Startup. This is…
Many up and coming entrepreneurs often ask me for my rules for success. They seem to think that as they set out on their entrepreneurial journey there should be a road map charting each step of the way. They imagine it’s like driving from San Francisco to New York and having their own personal navigator…
There comes a time in everyone’s life when the deck seems stacked against you. One minute you can be on top of the world; the next minute the world seems dead set against you. For whatever reason forces have gathered together in a determined effort to drag you down, to discredit everything you have achieved,…
Muhammad Ali was a fighter. In every sense of the word. Not just in the boxing ring but in the ring of life. When he passed away three years ago, social media lit up around the world to mourn the passing of this iconic legend and to celebrate his life. Tributes poured in from every…
The 4:30 am Start: The Routine, Diet, and Exercise. As most people know, being a CEO is a tough job, especially when you’re building a company from scratch. Business is the toughest sport you can play as an athlete. You need the endurance to deal with the highs and lows, the stamina to handle the…
While the view isn’t entirely unfounded and things AI can do today were once considered Utopian, but it is a change which should be celebrated rather than doubted. While artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way over the years, misconceptions and, more importantly, mistrust around it still linger. It is widely believed that humans…
A few months back, I saw a post by Ray Newal from Techstars that really resonated. “One of the biggest threats to founders today is false positive signaling. It’s easy to mistake the popularity of posts on social media, or the receipt of unknown or unanticipated awards as signs of success. Be very clear, the only…
They said, “Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of, who do the things that no one can imagine.” What makes these people successful isn’t rocket science; rather it is perseverance and faith in self. As a young entrepreneur myself, I learned the harder I worked and blocked all the negative energy, my…
Once a man got lost in a desert. The water in his flask had run out two days ago, and he was on his last legs. He knew that if he didn’t get some water soon, he would surely die. The man saw a small hut ahead of him. He thought it would be a…
In 1892 at Stanford University, an 18 year old student was struggling to pay his fees. He was an orphan, unsure where to turn for money, so he came up with a bright notion. He and a friend decided to host a musical concert on campus to raise money for their education. They reached out…
A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into a University President’s outer office. The Secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at their university and probably didn’t even deserve to be. “We want to…
What would you do?….you make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice? At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never…
I hope you find what you’re looking for out there. I hope you find the kind of happiness that exists on your own terms. I hope you truly take the time to figure out what moves you, what encourages your soul, what you deeply crave from life, and I hope you have the courage to…
To Pay it forward. Every year theChahal Foundation picks an important cause to support. During my last trip to India, I had learned that schoolgirls face profound disadvantages and drop out of school early at a disproportionate rate. We asked ourselves, how could we find an effective way to help keep girls in school so that…
At 35, I can look back at 19 years of myself being in business, and, I can say I’ve seen it all. The good, the bad, and the ugly. So, the next series of blogs I write are really geared to my younger self. Hoping, that someone that is going through similar consequences, challenges, ordeals…
It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged on BeLimitless, so I will do my best to be more active. Life has always been a journey, not a race for me. And, while technology has done its job by connecting us. It’s also made us live two different lives. We read tweets, scroll through social feeds, watch…
In the Far East, there is a tree called the Chinese Bamboo Tree. This remarkable tree is different from most trees in that it doesn’t grow in the usual fashion. While most trees grow steadily over a period of years, the Chinese Bamboo Tree doesn’t break through the ground for the first four years. Then,…
They say that, at some point, you learn to let go. I must disagree. If it just takes one moment to let go, then you never really held on tightly enough. To a dream. To a goal. To a place. To a person. To anything. I believe that you let go little by little. You…
You were not born to be rich, to be famous, to be superficial or to be someone’s puppet. You were born on this planet to find your purpose. You do whatever it takes. You don’t make excuses, you keep searching. Everybody hopes and chases the wrong things, but forgets the answer lies deep inside us. Don’t create moments about materialism, make…
Celebrity endorsements are not a new marketing concept. It is a time-honored marketing tool, dating back as late as 1930s for radio advertising, 1950s for TV advertising and as recent as 1990s for the internet. This framework hinges on borrowing a celebrity’s star power to build product awareness. The strategy behind celebrity endorsements are to…
Her are your chances statistically at life: Chances of becoming a millionaire: 1% Chances of becoming a billionaire: .00002% Chances of winning the lottery: .000001% Odds of getting a royal flush on your first five cards: 1 in 649,740. Odds of becoming U.S. President: 1 in 323,100,000. Odds of winning $340 million jackpot in MegaMillions…
A wealthy Singh walks into a bank in London and asks for the loan officer. He says he’s going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow £5000. The bank officer says the bank will need some kind of security for the loan, so Mr Singh hands over the keys to a…
Saying everyone can make a difference is a blanket statement, but it’s true. The world is big and there is something everyone can do. Gurbaksh Chahal targeted the bigger issues: eradicating sex trafficking, improving third-world education, and raising awareness of cultural issues have been the targets of The Chahal Foundation since its creation. However, not all of…
Life will not always be a bed of roses. Your dream job will not be handed to you on a silver platter. These are the simple realities of life. However, it doesn’t mean the opposite. You are not stuck in a bush of thorns, or permanently jobless. Getting to where you want to go takes…
Gurbaksh Chahal is a man of remarkable fate. One of the youngest millionaires in the digital industry, over the years he founded four companies, each of them more successful than its predecessor. However, it was not a path strewn with rose petals, and he learned some very important lessons along the way. These days Gurbaksh…
As a society, we’ve become obsessed with possessing what we don’t have. We fantasize about places, people, and things we want to have, all while abandoning the precious moments right in front of us. How many times have you seen others take pictures of the most routine moments of their lives just to post them…
The amount of suffering in this world is unimaginable, and children (and with them our future) are the most vulnerable victims of crime and outright atrocity. In this day and age, child labor, child sex trafficking and abuse still are the gruesome reality of too many countries. These children are robbed of their childhood and,…
Although I dropped out of high school at the age of 16, to pursue my dreams in business, I have never downplayed the importance of education. Quiet to the contrary, I have often stated in all of my guest lectures for students to stay in school, and to never stop learning – for it is a lifelong…
As first appeared on Forbes.com by Melissa Thompson. Gurbaksh Chahal, a successful American-Indian internet entrepreneur who in 2007 sold his company to Yahoo for $300 million, leads the fight against discrimination with the Chahal Foundation. I recently wrote about how entrepreneurs deal with setbacks. There’s little doubt that the life of an entrepreneur is often full of adversity…
There is no job as thankless and selfless than that of a mother. On my Facebook today, I thanked my mother for giving me the gift of life and for always being there for me. My mother is an incredible person who sacrificed a very comfortable life in India, but gave up to raise her four children…
Think of one universal quality that is shared by every successful man or woman in history. Is it ambition? Hard work? Luck? Insightfulness? Probably. But there’s one more thing that is imperative to succeed: fearlessness. How Gurbaksh Chahal Overcame Failure and Found Success “Be fearless. The road to success is paved with failures. If you’re…
True success goes hand in hand with generosity and willingness to make the world a better place for those near and far. The readiness to share the secrets of one’s own success is no exception: successful entrepreneurs know how to handle these insecurities that sometimes make people feel that their own achievement might be at…
Having a rough morning? Place your hand over your heart. Feel that? That’s called purpose. Don’t ever give up. Everyone struggles with insecurities. They make us vulnerable. And, they either make us or break us. We all have them, after all we’re humans. It’s how we deal with them that separate us. We have this inner voice…
In India every hour, two girls under the age of 15 are forced into sexual exploitation with little hope for freedom. The human trafficking industry is among the fastest growing criminal activities. In fact, it is a multi-billion dollar industry with complex global networks. Child trafficking is a serious problem and continues to plague the…
With Artificial Intelligence (AI) now being seen as an essential tool in various sectors, it is important for our generation to incorporate innovative dynamic learning needs into our global education system. But when cutting-edge sectors evolve at lightning pace, it is not always possible for traditional sectors to change at the same speed. My company,…
One of my favorite segments on Oprah was when she brought in a special guest by the name of Randy Pausch on October 2007. Professor Pausch was an esteemed professor at Carnegie Mellon University, a devoted husband and father who was fighting pancreatic cancer. He gave an abridged version of his speech of his “Last…
It’s true, the most successful individuals in the world have the most struggling stories. It’s not that they’re looking for trouble, but pursuing the things they are pursuing in life puts them in some complicated situations. Believe me there is no book out there that says, “You’ve just become successful, if so, here all the things…
One of my favorite blog posts, was one that I wrote last year that went viral, titled originally “Happiness StartUp: Rules To Live By.” It’s still something I read at least twice a month to remind myself of why we do the things we do, why it’s important to struggle, and why to never make…
As you look yourself in the mirror, read this every morning to yourself as you wake up. You say that I may or may not succeed but you don’t get to decide. I don’t know who or what decides. I’ve been trying to figure it out. I’m here, and while those who are not. I’m…
Talent gets you noticed…maybe. And looks, sure, for a moment. But the only thing that gets you a seat at the table…is force of personality. I’m talking about complete and utter confidence in who you are. When you have that, people are drawn to you. They don’t know why, but suddenly they need you. And…
Happiness is elusive without balance. I learned that the hard way. As an entrepreneur, I’ve been fortunate to see financial success but that has little connection to genuine happiness. A famous writer once said, “Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t…