Two years ago, Anupam Gupta and Saurabh Mukherjea were sitting in a café at Lower Parel, discussing what makes successful professionals in the corporate world, successful. Eventually, they realised that the drivers of outsized success were common across promoters, CEOs and fund managers. As Mukherjea, founder of Marcellus Investment Managers, puts it, "So, the skill set required to be an Aditya Puri at HDFC Bank is actually very similar to the skill set required to be a Warren Buffet. As we drank more coffee, we realised that that's also what is required to be an outstanding author, musician or martial artist."

The result of this epiphany was The Victory Project (Penguin Random House India) which released last month, where the authors outline six steps to attain the maximum potential in whatever you do by interviewing experts from all walks of life including Harsh Mariwala of Marico, Raamdeo Agrawal of Motilal Oswal group and Apurva Purohit of Jagran Prakashan Ltd. The book is replete with case studies, too, and the approach, in contrast to many management books, isn't esoteric. To achieve peak potential, the authors have coined a "simplicity paradigm", which is a six-step framework that entails the following: