Before the Zone officially begins, I invited graduates of the previous Zone to come spend an evening with and talk to me about their experiences since the last Zone, the learnings they applied since then and the new issues they would like to discuss.

You can read the live tweets from the session on my Twitter page - www.twitter.com/VjayEswaran. Follow the official hashtag #Zone.

Here are some highlights from last night.

The zone is inside of you. There are some people who live above the barrier all the time. They don’t know how else to live. You see them, you feel them and you get energized. Its something you must learn to have. Its not magic. It takes effort. It takes discipline, it takes attitude. You have to rework yourself. It’s a daily process.

The zone is a mental journey. What you do to get to the zone is more important than the Zone itself. It is the preparation that is most critical. You have to work incredibly hard at it and be very smart about.

So what is working hard?

What is hard for you may not be hard for someone else. So when you tell someone to work hard, you have to define the term 'hard'. I define hard as doing something you don’t like to do. And that is usually a long list.  As you start to do it and do it again and again, you get better at it and you learn to love it. But it’s a process.

Ask any champion in the sports field and they'll you its the mental attribute that is far more important than the physical attribute.

What is working smart?

The preparation, the planning, the thinking, the forethought. Working smart requires you to think first. Plan, Prepare, Project. Any endeavour requires this.

If you do the planning and preparation before the projection, you will have feasible projections and even then you will reject 20 of them. That’s working smart. Only then you can apply working hard. If you spend that little more time preparing, planning, projecting, you will be that much more effective.

Remember always, before you can develop, design and direct, you have to plan, prepare and project.

Here are some important lessons you should remember.

• In order to be spontaneous you have to do a tremendous amount of planning.  You cannot be spontaneous without all the effort behind it.
• There is only one fear you should have. That you have only today, and only today counts.  And you have to maximize today.
• What is your drive? What makes you get up in the morning? You have to identify that. Otherwise life is not worth it.
• Always stay hungry. It doesn’t matter how big a cheque you receive. Never rest on your laurels. Otherwise, your laurels will soon become wreaths.
• Earning money is hard work. But keeping it is an art form. It can be a serious problem.
• Hard work is a mental game. We are all good at some things and weak at some things. The things we are good at, we like to to do more of. Practising the Sphere of Silence is incredibly difficult. It's something that constantly challenges you. I’ve never met anyone who considers it a walk in the park. Every single person you may know who has achieved greatness in some form or another, whether they call it private time or ‘time to myself’, they all practice silence or a period of solitude. Practising the Sphere of Silence will challenge you, it will stretch you, it will break you but the one thing it will help you conquer, is your mind.
• You have to come here with the mind of a child. De-program yourself to think about failure.