my interview to lessonslearned.in
Here's the excerpts of my interview to lessonslearned.in
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A sports management pro, running promoter, PR consultant, blogger, entrepreneur, Rajalingam Manickavasan dons many hats. A public relations professional, Raj started his entrepreneurial venture, Toss Sportz Eventz, to promote sports related events and to his credit, his venture has been covered in over 200+ times in media. He is also the force behind the running initiative called ‘Running for a change’ his recent venture that promotes running as a catalyst for healthy living. With more than a decade long experience in public relations and sports, Raj talks about the lessons that he has learned through sports and his business ventures–
You have been in the sports management field for many years now. What are the lessons that you have learned through your experience?
Getting into the sports management business was the toughest decision that I had to take in my life. Everyone around me was against that idea, and I was left behind to decide it alone. It was a tough decision to take and I chose to follow my heart rather than listen to those who loved me. Sports management has taught me two things.
- Love what you do,
- Be emotionally tough when you are planning a tough journey.
If you love what you do, you will cross the hurdles you come across in your journey, with much ease. I have a wall hanging in my office that says “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going” and you could almost call it as a guideline by which we conduct business in my line.
As a keen observer of sports and sports personalities, what are the positive things that you have learned?
There are many things that I learnt from both the sports and the sports personalities I follow. For any sportsperson or any sports event to be famous, one has to remember that there’s a lot of hard work and team effort that’s been invested in the process. And being in the same industry, I learnt in the hard way. It has also taught me how to keep my cool during adverse situations.
Your favourite sports personality and the lessons learned from him/her?
Tennis is the main factor that pushed me into the sports management industry. It is also my favourite game and being a tennis player, I would say my favorites are Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. I learnt to keep smiling even at tough times, the Sampras way. And consistency is another important quality that I learnt to be important in both business and personal life, thanks to Federer for inspiring me with his consistent performances.
What prompted you to start the ‘Running for a change’ venture? Any lessons learned from this?
I was organizing running events through my sports management venture ‘Toss Sportz Eventz”. But an accidental conversation with my friend and few ideas he came up with made me launch “running for a change”. It is a non-profit running promotion initiative, which is into organizing marathons to promote running as a healthy lifestyle and also to promote worthy causes to raise funds. And I wanted to differentiate this running venture from Toss by making it a pure non-profit venture. I have since learnt that one has to start doing things, if he / she is convinced that a particular idea is going bring some change to people around you. And you will always have people to support you in your initiative, if your idea and thoughts are clear and strong.
You organized the “Chennai Pink Run” a marathon race for breast cancer awareness in Chennai. How did that come about and share any lessons you have learnt?
Talking bout Chennai pink run, I have seen many marathons being organized in other parts of the world. But the city where I was born and brought up didn’t have one. And there wasn’t a single exclusive women’s running event happening in the city. So I decided to take the initiative and launch the event for the women in Chennai. And breast cancer awareness was something that was done by few NGOs so I wanted to bring the issue to the forefront. So the combination of Breast cancer awareness and an exclusive women’s run gave birth to the Chennai Pink Run, which is the Chennai’s first exclusive women’s run that is undertaken to spread breast cancer awareness. Yeah, I faced several problems during the launch of the first edition. But I learnt that in the long run, that if you are persistent in what you want to achieve, you will get through it. And when you bring out a new concept, you need to give some time to people around you to accept the idea and get used to it.
Raj blogs at www.rajalingam.in and can be reached on Facebook and Twitter @www.facebook.com/therajalingam & www.twitter.com/theRajalingam
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here's the link to he original article:
http://www.lessonslearned.in/lessons-learned-sports/