Short Description – When your entrepreneurial instincts take over the world starts conspiring to make your dreams come true. As an entrepreneur following his dreams, realization will dawn on you to follow the path that the dream takes you through in a roller coaster journey of interconnected events happening for a reason.
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Some of us have might heard of the saying that Entrepreneurship is the pinnacle of self-actualization. If you have not, it is quite all right because that is something I just made up from the deep recesses of my imagination and creativity.
I have always believed that people take the dive into entrepreneurship because each one of us have a dream to control, to make a difference and play by our own rules. This was true in the case of Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Azim Premiji and Hugh Heffner of Playboy. Over the past decade or two we have witnessed the emerging importance of entrepreneurship. Every economy in this crazy boundary-less world is looking out for more entrepreneurs, an economy where everyone works for himself or herself. Renowned and prestigious schools from across the globe provide courses on the subject. Personally my belief is that entrepreneurship cannot be taught… only the tools that an entrepreneur will need can be provided through an education system.
I read in the ‘Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho that it is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life an interesting proposition. The realization of my dreams lay in entrepreneurship. During my definitive college years I learnt a lot through the various theoretical resources that the Indian education system pushes down your throat. However, college failed to captivate me on its own. I had to do something else and therefore I applied to work with an NGO, the second largest in the world the last time I checked. Students from around the world, across 85 countries, run the organization. I was keen on making it prominent in the organization and building my network. I made it up the ladder at a local level. Making it prominent in the organization I am not sure about, but I understood the importance of Networking. This learning, I knew, was going to come to use later in my entrepreneurial venture. Networking is a fairly simple concept of getting to know more people than you already do, building a rapport, constantly communicating with each one of them and when needed ask them to assist you with your venture.
Once I got out of the ever so exciting college system I decided to take the plunge and make my dreams reality. I was never a big fan of Post Graduate studies, always thought that they impede growth of your creativity and imagination. Therefore with a degree, a lot of enthusiasm and undying self-motivation I came up with a business idea that I wanted to pursue. I tried my best at trying to convince the ‘more experienced’ company leaders that the service I was selling was one that could add much value to their organization. Of course that is when I understood that if you look 50 years old but have a product/ service that necessarily did not add much value… you are in a better position to get clients than I was. That is when I had my second practical session on entrepreneurship. You must possess the quality of Perseverance.
As a struggling yet budding entrepreneur there was a constant Evolution of business plans. One idea leads to the refinement of the previous one and the emergence of another more viable and exciting opportunity to tap. Had it not been for the evolution that my business plans and I went through I would not have been sure of the firm or the business model that I run today. It is good to evolve, which just means that you are constantly thinking of ways to improve and offer a service or a product that progressively adds more value to the clients.
However, as the business plan was busy evolving I was beginning to discover that it is not as simple as just taking the dive. Your worldly ‘needs’ require your attention. Today, I do not think any of us can ignore all else and concentrate only on the one goal. There always is something else that needs your attention. I learnt that I was going to have to work twice as hard for my entrepreneurial venture to take flight. Therefore I persisted with a ‘9-5’ job that would take care of my financial and ‘worldly needs’ and give me the flexibility of time. Obviously, that meant I learnt something new. Efficient Time Management and the concept of Moonlighting was a beautiful path of non-compromise where everyone but your sanity wins.
Moonlighting is a very simple concept. In this concept you pursue your regular job and get ordered by someone hierarchically above you. Once your ‘work’ is done for the day start working on your entrepreneurial venture through the night, hence the name moonlighting. However, what you need to be prepared for is months on end with only about FOUR hours of sleep a day. Fortunately for us entrepreneurial dreamers when you are following a dream ironically sleep becomes inconsequential. However, a word of caution would be to let you know that it is extremely taxing on the already over-worked brain of us Homo sapiens.
It is a great feeling of achievement and pleasure when you have a good idea and everyone has only compliments for you. There is never enough of the good that you can hear. However, the dilemma that brings along with it is something that is tough to cope with. If the idea is as great as everyone claims it to be then why am I not making faster progress or why is it still this hard to sell the idea to the prospective ‘hard-shelled’ clients? The answer lies in the fact that every entrepreneur is going to experience it even after he/she has set up the business venture and everything seems to be going just fine. People are always ready to find fault in what I have to say and I need to be prepared to accept criticism and learn to filter only those that I deem important.
I often lost myself in the entrepreneurial dream that drove me from one day to the next. The world around me seemed quite insignificant. Unfortunately it is never simple to forget about everything else around you. This made me realize that having more than one thing to do kept my mind fresh with new thoughts and ideas. Ironically my regular ‘run-of-the-mill’ job was something that helped me in my entrepreneurial venture. It kept me on my toes and broadened my horizon. Else I would have most definitely entered a mental asylum never to return from its hallowed doorway.
There are sacrifices that one makes in his journey to being a successful entrepreneur. I have made quite a few and many that I will never be able to explain. People around you will most often never understand what goes on in your head, the way you think, process the world and the people around you. However at the end, all of it seems fruitful and all that happened along the way happened for a reason. In hindsight you realize that when you have a dream and the world following the most logical path seems to conspire to make it reality.
For me entrepreneurship is about discovering how you cannot do everything but you need to facilitate the process by bringing others to the table. And that ‘the slow and steady’ tortoise does win over the rabbit. It takes time and a great deal of effort but the dream is what should push you from one day to the next and then the next till you succeed, cause the world conspires for you!
About the Author
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kiranmenon
