‘Make in India’ is a slogan that is much talked about today. Many people are taking the path of entrepreneurship with the sole idea of being financially independent. Many Indian entrepreneurs aspire to make history as made by Flipkart and Redbus.
I am an entrepreneur too and my journey has
taught me a lot of things. I won’t be talking about rules of entrepreneurship or
success mantras because there are many books in the market that will give you
this information. Entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark
Zuckerberg are better positioned to give you tips on entrepreneurship. I will just
talk about entrepreneurship as a lifestyle and what it really does to a person
as such.
The journey of entrepreneurship may be of
success to a few and failure for many, but in real sense, entrepreneurship is
never about failure. It always teaches one something and brings out the best in people.
The entrepreneurship journey can very well
be compared to car driving. Do you remember how you felt when you wanted to
drive a vehicle? Wasn’t the sole purpose to opt for driving was to be independent.
You wanted to go out and move around at your own pace. You must have been
thrilled at the thought of moving around all by yourself, even though you knew
that the roads were fairly congested and clogged with traffic. You must have
often read in news about accidents – some bad and some very bad. But all that
never kept you back from trying your hands at driving. This is exactly what entrepreneurship
is all about. If you are aspiring to be independent and you wish to try new
ideas and be adventurous, you need to get on the driver’s seat. You need to become
an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship is all about deviating
from the main road and trying out less travelled roads.
Do you remember your first ride on your vehicle?
It must have been a thrilling experience. But wait... when you took your first
step towards independence, wasn’t there a price to pay? The calm and composed
life that you had by siting on the passenger seat was gone. You were on the driver’s
seat. Now you had to be alert, take quick decisions and ensure that you steered
the vehicle in the right directions in order to reach your destination. If you
were lost on the way, you were required to access the situation and make a U
turn or divert to another route and slowly return back on the right track. Entrepreneurship
is the same. Quite like driving is tougher than sitting on a passenger seat, entrepreneurship
is tougher than a well-paying job. But what matters is the independence and
thrill that comes along with. You need to focus hard and keep checking out all the
possibilities of challenges that may show up on the road. You are after all on
the driver’s seat and you are in charge.
Entrepreneurship brings out a
sense of responsibility in you because a wrong decision will not just impact
your life but also impact the life of people who are with you on the ride. You
need to be mature enough to be able to decide when to take risk and when to
drive cautiously. You need to know when to take shortcuts and when to stay on
the main road, when to speed up and when to drive slow. Most importantly, entrepreneurial
journey requires you to take ownership of your decisions. A wrong decision if
taken, has to be dealt with and one has to carefully steer out of the situation.
Often you must have seen that vehicles
have to slow down when there is a speed breaker. Entrepreneurship differs
slightly in this case. One must pick up speed on a speed breaker (Hurdle)
because that is where your competitors will slow down. A well calculated speed will
ensure that you get a lead over others. However, you need to make sure that you
do not speed too much else you run the risk of meeting with an accident.
Once you become an expert driver,
you drive effortlessly. Entrepreneurship is also the same. You need initial
efforts to get the vehicle on the road. Once the business is on track, you can
drive effortlessly.
So, what are you waiting for? Get
on the driver’s seat if you are ready for the challenges. Its ok to stop, slow
down and meet with major or minor accidents. It is part of driving, but important
is to keep going.
Happy entreprenurship
!!
