Dr Rakesh Sinha is a surgeon with two entries in the Guinness Book of Records, a mind management speaker and runs marathons even at 56. In Mumbai to release Anatomy of Success ufffd a DVD where he is interviewed by Jack Canfield, he speaks to Dhiman Chattopadhyay about his records, training cops and army officers the art of mind control. Excerpts
How he got hooked on the path of self development
I got exposed to self-development in 1989. I was in UK, visiting a hospital and I came across a video cassette by Tom Peters called In Search of Excellence. It educated me a lot and I realised that just as business people get educated, I needed to learn a lot about self-development as a doctor. I had my Masters degree in gynecology, but I was looking at what else could I do to improve my social, management and strategic skills.
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Sharing the knowledge
I started speaking at Rotary events. I was the president of the Rotary club of Bombay, Bandra chapter. In 1997 I met Mr D Shivanandan in one of the programmes. He was then an additional commissioner with the Mumbai Police. We became good friends and soon I was addressing large groups of IPS officers, senior cops and even CBI officers about self-development and management.
How management helps in surgery
I am a trained surgeon. Yet, one day I realised that as I developed my oratory skills and spoke about management, it was helping me manage my surgeries better. My decision-making abilities improved. When that happens, your strategic thinking improves. In so many cases in the OT, I have to instantaneously take decisions. Self-development helped me greatly.
Being interviewed by Jack Canfield
Jack Canfield is very renowned for his Chicken Soup book series. He also does interviews of celebrities, who are well-recognised all over the world in his TV programme called Success Profiles. I had attended one of his Train the Trainer programmes, where he noticed me and asked whether I wanted to be a part of his success profile series. He interviewed me and we now have a DVD of that interview available in India, called The Anatomy of Success.
Constantly reinventing himself
I have run four full marathons till date. I am 56 now. The first time I ran a marathon was at the age of 47. All the orthopedic surgeons tell me not to run. They tell me I am damaging my knees. But I tell them, I have a choice - either I damage my heart or I damage my knees. I can replace my knees. I cannot replace my heart. So I run.
Entering the Guinness Book of Records - twice
It was just an incidental thing. I had finished a surgery on December 25, 2000. We weighed the fibroid and realised that it weighed 3.4 kg. I remember saying ‘Oh my God, this is very, very big.’ We sent a letter to Guinness and we were in the book for having operated upon the world’s largest fibroid. Then in September 2009 I took out the largest uterus that weighed 4.1 kg.