Disciplined Entrepreneurship – as SIMPLE as it gets

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Disciplined

If you have ever spoken to me for even a 5 min conversation, associated for any form of engagement professionally, known me as a friend or just bumped into me for a couple of beers in airports/pubs, you would know I come with an abundance of experience, loads of challenges and some great learnings through these years, which I do not hesitate or shy away from sharing with everyone. Today morning, this write-up is from one such thought that passed through my mind and as I saw the time, I knew I had 40 mins to start my day’s work & so decided to share this with all of you.

Have I done mistakes in my entrepreneurial journey till date? you bet on that, in fact, I take pride in owning my shit to such an extent that the number of mistakes I have done till date, not many of you would beat me to it. So, what has all this taught me? it has shown me what is the best way to run a business, it has made me learn the hard way to be great at what I do, it has made me a stronger leader, a founder with her head on her shoulders and a woman with pride on her being and control over her emotions. Thus began my Entrepreneur 2.0 and one of the first things I put in place for myself is to designate myself as “Advocate to Disciplined Entrepreneurship”.

Since that time, I have been working towards answering some very important questions for myself, which when answered, gets passed on as lessons to our incubated startups at StartupsClub. Some of the questions are:

  • Why did I do what I did?
  • What is different in me now?
  • What will stop me from going back to who I was?
  • What will ensure my consistency remains?
  • Am I disciplined enough?
  • What is being better than what I am now? 

& these questions go on… Today I woke up and realised that I had a decision to be made, in regards to something related to compliance of the company. With the COVID situation in hand and all relaxed rules from the Government departments, I had the freedom of time to complete the task, I was tempted to take that time too, but then, I stopped for just a second & asked myself a question, “Surely I can delay this, but as a disciplined entrepreneur, is this delay the right thing to do?” the answer was staring back at me the very next second, “NO” and without the next thought or connecting any past experiences or present situation or any advice or suggestions, I just stuck with that answer in my head, a NO. THERE WILL BE NO DELAYS… That was it, we proceeded with what had to be done. 

So, if you think that being a disciplined entrepreneur, requires you to have some experience under your belt, you would need right mentors, you would need a good team around or you would have to have the knowledge, you are so WRONG. All you need to have, as a disciplined entrepreneur is clarity of thought and ability to make decisions when the need arises, decisions that are RIGHT FOR YOUR STARTUP, and stand your ground. Everything/everyone falls in line once you do so. 

Remember, your startup needs an advocate for itself, someone who will do what it takes to give it the best outcome, the question you need to ask yourself, is ARE YOU THE ONE? If you are, then, rest assure, being disciplined will be a cakewalk for you. Do not think a lot into it, just go with the flow, be the anchor for the right choices for your business and do not weigh yourself down to circumstances, people & challenges. 

You got this.. If I could, you could too... 

Warriors in Apron

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warriors

You will find my professional learnings and thoughts shared on StartupsClub and here you will get lessons through my personal journey… So, I want to share something that has haunted me for sometime now. Since my separation, I have played a fearless role of a mother and a father to my 3 kids, now when they have reached their adult lives, they look for a mother’s love, the nurturer, the care taker and the gatherer in someone else.

Why do we have to cook for the child, be the housekeeping support, person with an apron to come back to?

The more I thought about it, I realised, it is nothing to do with being a mother, it is nothing to do with the fact that mothers are expected to have the apron on at all times. It is not even a mother – child issues. The issue here is larger than just a mother figure. the issue here is about “Evolution of a Society” & the question is “Have we even changed a bit from the decade old belief system of what women are suppose to be doing?”

I believe that the belief system is fucked up in full. We were better off when we were at a time when men dominated the society, women were expected to be behind pardah, be the care takers and not raise their voice, be responsible for the everyone’s happiness and comfort at home, live a life of little and not demand more. At least, the society was behaving in exactly the same manner that they believed in and showed it out as.

These days, the society is fucked up, because, deep within, those old age beliefs is what we hold strong, we want the women in your life to be doing exactly those things as their grand father / mothers expected but then to put up a show, a face to this modernised, outspoken, social media driven world, they talk about women empowerment, working mothers, equality for women at work and play, respect for their voice, choice and decisions. Because these same people need to be seen as the civilisation of today. They have a say in everything great that they stand for. So, they are one of the great individuals, educated and a person with great values for today and the future.

But, let us step into their private lives, their candid existences, their dark nights, the times when they shed this worldly skin aside to be their true self and then you see that side of them (men & women). The side that goes centuries back for the women around. The side that says, take care of me, take the brunt of my short comings, take my shit on to you and make me feel good for all the wrongs that I have done or been through.

This is why, we still get to hear about:

  • Domestic Abuse
  • Rape within families
  • Less women in senior jobs
  • Less pay for women
  • Dowry killing
  • Honour killing
  • Acid attacks
  • Child marriage
  • Extra marital affairs
  • So many more…

These incidents when it happens, its not done because of some bad moment or something the victim did, it is purely because, it was during this moment, the person doing it, was being true to their inner most belief system.

I have been there, in the darkest of people’s sides and I am here to, at the front line of people’s worldly presence, so I know the two sides of the society. I am that person, the woman, who spent half her life, seeing the dark side of everyone around…

Disciplined Entrepreneurship

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“Successful founders were not born with a magic wand; they happen to be some of the most disciplined people in the world.” – This was one of the quotes from the faculty in the executive course that I am taking through the Harvard Business School platform. This hit me hard. All through my journey as a startup mentor, I have been speaking about being at the right time and right place. There is a good part of that “right time – right place” that has some magic, some play by the universe here and there. 

I was working on this course where every word of it was opening 100s of thoughts that proved to me how correct they were. Saying that every successful entrepreneur has worked their ass off, in a systematic way and not for a few days, weeks, months but for years in a “one day at a time manner”.

Solving problems, taking up challenges by its head and making sure that it is beaten down to its minimum size and then solving it bit by bit has been one of my strongest skill set. So as these 2 words “disciplined entrepreneurship” settled in deep into my head, heart and soul, thus started my research, my reading, my connecting dots. How things have worked out for me when I have been disciplined, and how things have fallen into pieces even after tons of efforts without being disciplined. After hours and hours of breaking my head and putting down all my free time during the famous “lockdown” that is in progress, I am as of now the strongest advocate for Disciplined Entrepreneurship. 

So here below are well thought out 5 things that you can do to start your entrepreneurial journey in a disciplined manner:

  • Be clear on the purpose of your efforts as an entrepreneur – If you are unsure of what you are doing, you start being disciplined with it; it will get you to a place that you would not want to be in. So, get your thoughts as clear as possible, know your entrepreneurial self as clearly as you can, the purpose behind it and the problem that you are solving.
  • Categorise your tasks in priority brackets – If you tell yourself that you will be 100% committed for all your tasks, then you are lying to yourself and to your business. You are a human being and not a machine, it is okay to be less in some places. Once you put down your priority categories in High Priority, Medium and Low Priority. You can give yourself the space to fall behind in things at times in the low priority category, therefore, ensuring that you deliver a disciplined approach to get 100% results inconsistent manner in the high and medium priority tasks.
  • Forget long term goals once finalised – To be disciplined in an ongoing manner for a long time, you definitely need to have a long term goal, but once that is set, broken down to a daily goal, you need to let the long term goal be. Your line of sight must be to complete your daily short term goals successfully, every day. Taking it one day at a time is the only answer to the tasks becoming a habit. You don’t become disciplined overnight, you do, after doing things over and over again on an on-going basis for a long time.
  • Delegation is not the Solution – As leaders, we are always advised and we hope too that one day, we shall have all our R&Rs delegated to our teams. Yes, that is the long term goal. Especially if you are just about to become disciplined in your business, delegation is a long term plan. You will have to get yourself into a process, have well-structured tasks with clear deadlines and delivery dates. Those dates should be met on a continuous manner by you and then when you go about taking in the team, they fall in line with the disciplined culture of the workplace.
  • Finally, Measuring results with clear parameters – We all have a problem, a big one, we believe we are doing things and sometimes we go blind to the fact that the outcomes are not as per set expectations. So, if you set clear parameters to measure the outcomes of the tasks that you must execute as high & medium priority in a disciplined manner, then measuring them on weekly or even daily manner will give you a clear picture for you to understand if you are online with things as planned. Being the entrepreneurs we are, once we know we have slipped off the grid, we will figure ourselves to get back on track, the challenge is to accept that you have slipped and the faster you do it, the easier it is for you to get back on track.

Share your thoughts in comments and we could discuss this further…

Being a ‘Full Person’ is not as easy as it sounds

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This is not a Feminist Post. This is about being a human – being a “Full Person”.

Sitting in front of my boarding gate, heading towards one of my most important day of my life, a day that would change the way my years ahead could turn out to be, personally, professionally, I needed to write this blog. This blog will remind me of the thoughts that are passing through my mind, body, heart and soul. I want to remember this for the rest of my life and as I do this, lock it in here, I also want to share this with all of you out there, who somewhere have been connected with me, with my journey, with my failures, my successes.

So, what is a “Full Person”?

Someone who can love and hate at the same time; someone who can be super strong and be the most weakest too; someone who would give with closed eyes and ask as bluntly; someone who can trust someone with their lives and at the same time doubt the worse. Yeah, that is who a Full Person is and if we see closely, those who have lead a successful, impactful, influential and a meaningful life have been able to show out both these sides of them.

Be a full person not just deep within, but for the people around and the world and more so to your loved ones.

But there is a negative side to being a full person, it is natural for them to most likely end up alone in life. With no companion brave enough to understand and accept them in full. We as humans are tuned to accept, tuned to expect, tuned to want limited, tuned to give limited, tuned to be limited.

When we come face to face with someone who is so full of everything, the good and bad, it is very obvious that we don’t understand them. When there is no clarity to things – we run. We want it out of our lives and systems and so that leaves us, the full people, moving ahead with their journey. ALONE.

Walking Away

It is neither our faults nor of those who walk away, it is the way human kind is. It is the writing on the wall. But, those who end up with people like us, they are called the “Brave Hearts”. For them, life is abundance, they get LOVE in FULL, LIFE in FULL, SUCCESS in FULL, LAUGHTER in FULL, along with the tears, pain, hurt. They just have to learn to walk through that episodes and they find it all.

Wife of Facebook Founder, Wife of Microsoft Founder, Wife of Amazon Founder (just a co-incidence that I am using the wives as example, there are many husbands too but at this point cannot think of the names) are some of the world’s greatest BRAVE HEARTS. When you see their lives closely, they would have suffered the most choosing to live a life with their spouses who turned out to be that FULL PERSON…

Finally, how does this Full Person operate? How do you cope with someone who is so much of everything? Do you love them or hate them? How do you stop thinking of them when they are in your system completely?

Maybe I could answer some of these questions today, because I know who I am. I know what I do to others and I also know what is that makes me tick. At this stage in my life, I have found someone who I do not want to loose, the last 5 hours, I have tried to not be a FULL PERSON.

I have sincerely wanted to be just a little weak, just a little less doubtful, just ask little less, just hurt a little less and I really did try and maybe I did to some extent. I was also able to mellow down, to be limited, to be normal but I also know, this will not last for long. So, I am scared of being a FULL PERSON and here I am answering some of the questions.

We operate – with the facts, that is seen, the face value. We don’t think of the past or the future. We react, we speak, we say and we do things based on the present moment and nothing more. Keep your focus on the present scenario on hand you have us in your control

You cope – by just remembering what we give you and how much when we are not in those episodes. Remember the goodness that we bring when we are passing through those moments. We are not just the BAD MOMENTS, we are a FULL PERSON, so the greatness is also what defines us.

You do what you want to do – Love or Hate – We the FULL PEOPLE, get you more than you can imagine. If you love us and act as if you hate us, we get it and the other way around as well. So just do what you want and see the magic unfold.

We think of you all the time – the reason you cannot stop thinking about us is because we have never stopped or given up on you, so don’t waste your energy trying to forget us, you cannot, we get into your blood. We are addictive and you just need to learn to live with us and make the best of being with a FULL PERSON.

Love you ZINDAGI. (that is the song I am listening to as a post this blog without re-reading it for errors as it want it go live as it is) LOVE YOU ALL.