It’s all about being
desperate without acting desperate.
I have been an entrepreneur
for around two and a half years now. I have realised one thing among many other
things over this period. Entrepreneurship is a journey of desperate thoughts
but not desperate actions.
What does that even mean?
Entrepreneurship is a lot like
being in a relationship. It is not a surprise that most successful entrepreneurs
have been die hard romantics as well. Loving is a risky business. There is
always the possibility of hurt and rejection. In order to experience love, you
will risk being hurt. In order to find success, you will have to risk failure.
You must have heard from
various sources that life is not complete without experiencing love. I am
pretty sure most of you out there have been crazy about someone at some point
in your lives. If you haven’t experienced anything like that I suggest that you
stop reading this memoir of a die-hard romantic and ask that person out that
you have always meant to.
Do you remember that first
time when you asked someone out? After you did it, wasn’t the feeling exhilarating?
Just like those crazy people who say that you should experience LOVE in your
lives, I say you should experience being an entrepreneur. The feeling is as
enriching and fulfilling as being in love, and at times more rewarding as well.
Yes, I have been in love, a
couple of times at least. Interestingly, I run two different businesses as
well. Just to clarify, I am not in love with the businesses that I run. I love
my work but I am not in love with it. As hard as it may seem to believe, I have
been in love with two different women. Just like love, I can’t tell you what
entrepreneurship really is, I can only tell you what it feels like.
Now, go back to the time when
you successfully asked someone out for the first time. Just consider the few
moments before the actual execution – the ideation phase in operations context
or the design phase in SDLC context. (Just to make my explanation easier to
visualise, let us imagine this in a traditional chauvinistic Indian context of
things where the guy asks the pretty girl out. No offence to the LGBT community
or my ultra-feminist friends). Let’s say you are the guy (no offence, again) and
you have been attracted to a particular member of the opposite gender for some
time now. You have an intuition that the feelings might be mutual but you can
never be sure in an Indian scheme of things where there is so much competition.
So, you make up your mind to ask her out. You make elaborate plans about how you
would implement it. Hold this thought and snap back to reality. Look at this
plan or idea objectively now, preferably from a third person’s perspective.
Does your plan seem stupid and naive?
Sadly, it does.
Does the plan seem logical?
No, it doesn’t.
Does your plan seem a bit too
desperate?
Of course, it does.
Yet, when you had executed this
plan some years back, you were successful at it. The sole reason why you were
successful was that you felt so strongly about the idea that your desperate
thought had transformed into passionate action. Even though the source of the
thought was desperate its implementation was perceived as passionate by the
recipient. You believed in your idea so much that your actions were not
considered desperate. You did not have an ounce of doubt in yourself.
When you consider starting
your own business, you end up experiencing almost identical emotions. The
source of your idea is always a desperate condition. Either you are really
desperate to change your situation in life or you desperately want to solve a
problem that you share a strong connection with. Your idea seems stupid to the
people around you. Your business model does not make any logical or statistical
sense. Yet, you go ahead and implement it. And if your belief in the idea is as
strong as your love for that member of the opposite gender, you end up becoming
successful more often than not.
Of course, starting a business
does not guarantee that you will end up running it successfully as well. Just
like getting into a relationship does not guarantee that you will stick around
with each other forever.
Running a business is very
similar to being in a committed relationship. Having done both, I can definitely
vouch for that. In both, you will experience moments of emotional outbursts.
You will go through phases of intense self-doubt. You will have to face a lot
of scrutiny and criticism. You will complain a lot about the lack of personal
space. You will hardly get any time to yourself. More often than not your
family will not support you. Your friends will laugh at you. You will definitely
face external competition. Nothing will make sense to you. You will feel like
giving up every day. Yet, you will continue to struggle on. You will somehow
stick around and not give up. Somehow, you will make it work because, be it
your relationship or your business, it would be the most beautiful thing that
you would have ever experienced in your life.
You will end up being
successful as long as you are desperate to be successful and do not let your
desperate thoughts to be perceived as desperate actions. That’s why I say experience
love at least once and give entrepreneurship a chance in your lives. You will
definitely find your lives to be worth living. You have only one life, make
sure you have a lot of stories to tell your grand kids.
Playing safe is not an option
if you want to experience the best that life has to offer. Starve your fears.
Decide to live beyond anxiety and doubt. You will have to make what you want
greater than what you fear.
