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...
Posted: by salmamoosa
