I used to complain myself on many things that I missed doing. And now I realize the complaints are just my inabilities only. I had never tried things what I felt I can’t. In that sense my inabilities or the bits and pieces that I judged as can’t are my lame excuses not to do things properly.
And the worst thing is that it is not only me but almost everybody habituated such futile things in life.
Here comes the importance of people like Mr. Mohammed Salih. Mohammed is my friend, and an inspiration to achieve my dreams now. He is from Calicut. He is born blind in a normal family. He has 4 siblings. His blindness is hereditary, his father and two sisters are also blind. He is a FIDE rated Chess player of India (rated along the normal players). He is a State champion in the blind category, he can face 10 opponents simultaneously. He is pursuing his law degree now.

I had heard about him a lot before I met him. I met him for the first time during the Startup Mantra event organized by Kerala Startups held at Trivandrum. Talking to him was really inspiring. In my verdict we, entrepreneurs, startups, or I can say everyone needs to learn a lot from him.

1. He has a Dream! I said DREAM! He is blind but still he dreamt of achieving something in life. He wants to open a chess academy, where he will train people to play chess. An academy or school is a great place as it is a place where sharing of knowledge happens. So by opening an academy he is trying to share whatever he has gained so far in chess to others. An attitude like this should be appreciated always.
2. He is following his passion. Chess is his passion, he forgets everything when he is playing chess. He likes to live in between the chess pieces. He loves to live his life with chess only. He wants to participate in chess matches in international level. Living passionate with some dream has inspired me as always, truly.
3. He is BOOTSTRAPPING! Yeah, for startups here is a perfect example of perfect bootstrapping. He said that his aim was to participate in chess matches in international level. But he knows that it requires lot of training and practice. Undergoing training with excellent and credible coaches is costly which he couldn’t afford in his situations. So he has decided to start a chess academy and play around it, and then he can get lot of time to play chess with different opponents, with different situations etc. He believes that , with his training institute he can successfully bootstrap his life, and simultaneously he can mould himself into a great player.
4. He believes in his abilities. I asked him, “How can you actually play the game by not seeing the board? “ “When you lose any of your features, say eyes, you will get double the powers for all your organs” I was literally goose bumped hearing this. He said we human beings never use any of our organs to its full capacity. If we can use them to full we can achieve better perceptions on so many things.
5. He is not blaming his disabilities or surroundings. His disability never stopped him from chasing his dream. All of us, even I used to blame the society sometimes in the life. We know many people blame others for not doing their own things properly. We complain : “we don’t have an ecosystem, we don’t have network, we don’t have mentors, or blah blah blah” , all these are bullshit excuses for not doing our duties. We should learn the right attitude from Salih. Yes, truly his disability is his strength.

As alchemist said,

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Dear Mohammed Salih, you are great man, we are following the path you have shown.

NB: The thumbnail is updated very recently!