‘As fire shapes gold, adversities shape people.’ HUL CEO Sanjiv Mehta doles out life lessons, harps on the importance of failure

Sanjiv Mehta, CEO and Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited, recently shared a valuable life lesson with his followers on LinkedIn. Mehta talked about the importance of failures, and how not to get deterred by them. The CEO wrote, “Just like fire shapes gold, adversities shape people to be stronger.”

Mehta, in a LinkedIn post hashtagged, ‘my reflections’ wrote, “it does not matter how many times you fail; what matters is how you bounce back from the failures every single time you are faced with adversity. And just like how fire shapes gold, adversities shape people to be stronger.”



He shared the post with a caption that advises people to not be afraid of failure in their lives and careers. The HUL CEO propounds that every failure is a stepping stone to learning and growth and therefore, he always encourages people to embrace failures.

“It's better to try and fail than never to have tried at all. To fail needs courage - the courage to take risks, courage to try the new and the courage to build a new future. Failure is the route to success, so get out of your comfort zones and surprise yourself with unlimited opportunities and possibilities,” he added in the caption.

Mehta often shares his musings on life and ambition on his LinkedIn profile. However, in 2019, he wrote a long post on his life’s most important learnings. In ten points, he summed up his life’s take away, and talked about the importance of having a purpose in life, following passion, not giving into the temptation of following the easier route, valuing one’s roots,balancing ambition with humily, embracing diversity and focusing on execution and creating value, as well as being a student throughout life. Among these learnings he had also listed the importance of failure.