Business

Sprint or Marathon?

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

I was caught on the wrong foot. Having run it like a sprint for the past few years, I had suddenly realised that life was a marathon!

All of us have our own thought processes about how life should pan out for us. And what should it lead to. As I came out of b-school and started working, I came to a conclusion that my life had to be in the fast lane and lead to massive success early on.

The next few years were spent chasing that dream. I set up my own business, worked extra hard, and burned myself going that extra mile to achieve success.

While the business did give me success and satisfaction, it was the thrill of being your own boss and running something for yourself that kept me going through a gruelling schedule and running the sprint.

It wasn’t until I decided to close down my business after 3 years and the hectic activity slowed down, did I start noticing that there were some gaps in my theory…

For one, I had neglected my health and had serious trouble on that front. I had also not been able to spend as much time with my family as I would have liked to. And I had spent most of what I earned, living life in the fast lane!

It was devastating to know that I had been running the race all wrong. Forgetting the dream that I had nurtured and closing down the business was in itself a painful process. Adding to it were all these other factors which were making me realise that I had been mistaken.

The next couple of months, I spent in introspection and thinking through on what went wrong and right for me. And while I carried rich experience that I couldn’t have got anywhere else, I realised that I could have run the race differently and had a more wholesome life.

After all, life is not a race to be finished, like a sprint. It is a marathon to be savoured and felt, going through the easy and tough phases. And it is above all an experience.

As I re-integrated with the corporate life again and got back to work subsequently, I made a quiet resolve that I will never be lured into running a sprint again.

And while the last few years have been busy, at the bottom of my heart and in my mind, I am running a marathon rather than a sprint.

As I spoke to an ex-colleague this week and we talked about this aspect of life, it made me realise that I have to keep course correcting myself from time to time to ensure that the bigger picture is not lost.

And to continue to live life to the fullest possible, enjoying the scenery and the road!!!

The downward spiral

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

As usual, over the weekend I tried to catch up with newsletters and articles to make sense of the world over the past week or so. Over the past few weeks, I had been following the narrative of things going wrong in business, and as I read some of those articles, that gnawing feeling came back – something’s not right with how things are in the business world.

Over the past few months, there has been constant reporting and scrutiny of how big tech companies, which at one point of time were hailed as superlative, are now being called out for wrongdoings. It’s been the same with startups too. And with companies in other established industries.

Well, one of the reasons for this level of outrage could be the disconcerting factor of how the current situation has resulted in small companies and businesses folding up, traditional setups destroyed, while tech-led businesses and large corporations have flourished.

Another could be the fact that after years of hoping that the online economy would open up channels of equality and grounds of fair play, we have realised that it is after all still the same old place, with people having better access to resources winning over those with less. And hence the backlash.

Or it could be just the fact that people have finally woken up and realised that all is not right with the world that we live in and they need to call out and correct the wrongdoings.

Whatever it may be, what I have realised is that without a doubt, there has been a constant churning for the worse. Companies that began with a heart of pure gold (or so they claimed), have compromised on their values. Leaders who espoused equality and fairness, have squandered the opportunity to abide by what they said initially. And startups which came into being to solve a problem and be different than the others, have disintegrated into being a newer version of those ‘others’.

In my mind, it all boils down to one aspect – it’s the human(s) leading the charge who have led this downwards spiral. The founders, the leaders, the executives, people who were tasked with leading the new wave and rising above others, haven’t been able to fulfil the potential that was expected or promised.

Having built a business myself, I know it’s not easy to be in those shoes. When one is in the saddle, every small bump has to be negotiated. Hurdles at almost every step have to be crossed. More so, if you are a startup or a company out to prove yourself in a new market. And there’s constant pressure. From your known ones, people who have invested in you or the company, from the customers et al.

And while your intention is to navigate all of these in the most ideal way possible, there are times when you fall down. When you have to take a detour to avoid a wide ditch. In times like those, you have to decide. Decide to do the right thing for everyone, without knowing what’s the correct answer. Taking a leap of faith sometimes.

As long as your heart is in the correct place, things would turn out to be fine. It’s when you allow those moments to move you into a different zone, one which you aren’t comfortable with, that things go wrong.

When investors advise you to adopt a different strategy contrary to what you wanted to do, for the sake of the market. Or competitors demand you to be more aggressive, forcing you to adopt practices not consistent with your values. That’s when the fault-lines appear and if not taken control over, lead to a crack, large enough to cause a chasm.

The trouble is, in a lot of the successful cases recently, these chasms have led to superior growth, opened up new vistas for the business, and led to the belief that the decision taken in those trying times was right. And as nothing succeeds like success, the new thought becomes the de-facto.

And then the downward spiral begins. Feeling reassured by the success and by the belief that things are fine, the chasm grows. Practices and policies get diluted. Things begin to change for the worse. Chasing numbers or growth or glory, decisions are taken that move away the company significantly from where it wanted to be, at the start. And that’s why the current backlash.

It’s not that the world is replete with these examples. There have been quite a few cases where the leaders have refused to budge and succeeded despite odds stacked against the right way of doing things. But they are far and few in between.

Perhaps, it is time for us to think about our responsibility individually and as we grow up in life and work, to resolve to do the right thing whenever we are leading the charge. Even if it means that we will take time to succeed. Or that we have to call out and correct the wrong-doing.

Because, the downward spiral isn’t something worth living for in the long run!

The Child in Us! The secret to business success…

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

All of us were children once! Some of us still are.

I just told you one of the secrets of being successful in business and entrepreneurship!

What is it about being child-like that prompts success when starting and running a business. I have been thinking about this topic for sometime and decided to pen down my thoughts today. 

We start our lives as a care-free, ignorant child. Lost in our own world. Oblivious to what’s happening around us or in the world. Blissfully unaware of our surroundings. The only thing that matters to us during those days is NOTHING!!! 

And then we start growing up. We slowly learn things and become aware about what’s happening around us. We start recognising people and pick up their habits and mannerisms. Ignorance is lost and that’s the first blow! 

We grow up more and enter the education world keen to make friends and play. We learn a lot in the process and become aware of what’s happening in the world. As a result, we start forming opinions and deciding our boundaries and limitations. Blow no. 2! 

We enter teenage and are often rebellious. We want to do things the other way. But then, that’s not how you do things honey! And we are stopped in our tracks to try out new things. ‘You can’t do that’, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea’, ‘I hope you get back to doing something better’, and the quintessential ‘What will people say’ are statements that we hear. And we lose our enthusiasm for trying out. No. 3! 

And then we finally enter the work sphere in our lives. And all our remaining hopes get quashed. We have to function as per the defined processes. We have to stay within our limits and not try new things. We must follow orders and stick to the protocol. Gone is our last remaining ounce of child-like thoughts by this latest blow.

That perhaps explains why a lot of people desire to do something of their own but can’t muster enough courage to try it out. The fear of failure and rebuttal dissuaded them. Something which was absent when they were a child!

Successful entrepreneurs on the other hand keep that inner child alive and kicking and come out triumphant on the other side of life to start a business. They nurture their inner child and grow in between the Nay-sayers and doubting Thomases. They don’t care if they fail or succeed, it just matters that they do what their heart and mind wishes for. And they know, even if they fail, it will be great learning and they will live on to fight another day.

The world looks at them in awe! But it was just the inner child that they kept on nurturing and enthusing all this while to succeed and live the life of freedom and dreams…