Nov 21, 2017.. Myself along with my partner had just landed in Delhi in the cold winter evening. As soon as we got off the tarmac, we ordered a 50 EUR airport pick up from Hyatt which would have otherwise been 7 EUR on Uber, but loyalty points. Fast forward a year, 21st January 2019, intern salary of 70 EUR is delayed due to cash crunch in the organisation.
Dec 08, 2017.. “Mom, can we postpone the trip or just exclude me, I need to take care of some work.” and guess what happens a year later. Feb 11 2019, “Mom, I guess we should plan a vacation to RAK in advance this year.” Instead of prioritising work calendar, my personal calendar now has reservations.
What happened!
2018 has been the single most transformational year in my life. Well, I am not over reacting on circumstantial changes or emphasising on self-improvement. That happens on a weekly basis with my coach but what I am trying to describe is that things beyond your control have the power to not only overturn things for better or for worse but also mold your character.
Instead of going through and analyzing the situation, I will summarize the learning briefly:
1. Nothing happens overnight, amazon has been a public company for two decades and Facebook is 15 years old. And things that happen overnight, need intense preparation and perseverance. You can learn about the hockey stick effect or the story of Chinese bamboo. Last year when I put up my first course on Procurement Management online on Udemy, I was barely getting 5/6 sign ups but gradually the graph moved and in the 12th month, the course had 50 signups in the month.
*Update: April 2020, we crossed 500 monthly signups and now a part of Udemy for business collection. View more enlightening courses here.
2. You can always reschedule work but cannot reschedule memories. You may think that you will probably make more money and have a better seat at the game but trust me it is not worth the effort. Today I regret not clicking a picture with my parents on my graduation day. Since we had something important, I had to rush. But guess what, I do not remember what was so important that day but what I do remember is being unable to click the picture.
3. Grind is necessary but it is all about the man hours. If you grind alone then you can probably make it till 10 hours a day max. Delegate and distribute work, you have more time. This one is among the easier said than done things. When you hire someone, you take the responsibility of their livelihood and this means you need to have enough cash in your surplus to pay them for at least 6 months without foreseeable revenue. It took me 3 months to hire my first intern and another 5 months till the first full time staff.
4. Present tense. Having a vision is necessary but living in the vision is foolish. Although you should plan all the steps, the only thing you should be thinking is the first step. Well, I used to think of myself as a partner at the firm when my current day job was being a consultant. What was wrong is that, instead of delivering projects and generating references, I was trying to network and cut deals of collaboration. And no wonder, I was stuck.
5. Do not overlook your physical and mental health. This includes working out or maintaining your diet as well as having quality time with your loved ones. Imbalance is only a recipe for disaster. As an imbalanced entrepreneur when I lost everything, I had nothing to turn to. And at the point the lost was too much to overcome since it was everything I had and mattered. So at times of misery mental fitness and support is much necessary than cash flow. Well, to summarize mental fitness, it is the chain of prep talks, fail safe mechanisms and diversions that keep you from getting in to self-analysis mode. Endurance running works for me.
6. Will power and perseverance. After numerous failed weight loss attempts with temporary stints of endurance running, yoga, cross fit and diet, I had starting thinking that the fitness industry is built more on Photoshop than supplements. But recently when I went on a no sugar – no junk food diet with a lifestyle change or taking the stairs, in two months I lost 3 kilos. The conclusion is that all methods work as long as you desire and persevere.
7. Even as a consultant doing cash flow planning, the reality I would say is that cash flows are unpredictable. So if your positive reinforcement mechanism is tied to cash, difficult times will be far more difficult. Either love what you do or try building a parallel system. In times when I needed to persevere and cash flows did not add up, I got demotivated easily. Well, that’s when I tied to something called output like the excel template that I just prepared or something I learned from a failed sales call or even a dropped client.
If you find this helpful, share the secret with your colleagues. And since you have made it all the way till the end, here is the link to our course on Procurement Management. Once you sign up and enroll for the course, please do leave an honest and positive review to help others.
Savvy Munshi 