From Daydreaming to Starting Small

Most of the time we are balancing priorities. It seems like there are two ways to go and we must choose one. 

Should we take risk and aim for growth? Or should we play safe so we at least survive? 

Should we work hard and give up comfort or should we take it easy and enjoy life? 

Should we stay back in our current job and build on what credibility we have already earned so far or should we explore new jobs where we can get new opportunities and a fresh start?

Should I spend my time on business development, finding new clients, or should we spend that time with our existing clients deepening our relationship with them?

These are some of the harder questions about life and career. The way we answer them determines our destiny.

I have seen my mother struggle with this. At times, she imagined owning and running a side business, although she had a job as a school teacher. 

Her salary was small, and she wondered how would it be to do some business and make some more money. Maybe offer tuition classes. Or set up a yoga studio (she is a trained yoga teacher). She had the time, but when it came to the grind, she could not really jump into it. 

She did not have to quit her job to start a business. All she had to do was start small. Take baby steps.

Rent a small place, start a part-time business. Find someone in the locality who would share some of the burdens. Maybe offer some classes on the terrace.

However, she never did. She said she didn’t have enough time. Or that she could not trust other people to delegate any tasks to them.

I saw that she spends more time arguing with the housemaids, and finding replacements when they left. She spent so much time inspecting how the utensils are clean enough or not or arguing with my father about how he drank too much tea. 

And I learned a lesson early in life - it is all about priorities. 

It is all about what I do with my time. I can spend it on things of little consequence, like whether the housemaid is ‘stealing’ some food from the kitchen, or whether someone else is parking a car on my backyard, or fighting petty battles on social media. 

Or I can spend my time on things that take me forward towards what I want, as long as I am playing a bigger game.

Priorities.

And baby steps in the directions we want to go when we can’t take big strides.

I get calls from friends who are fed up with their jobs in law firms and in-house legal departments, although earning 1 Cr or close every year, saying I can’t do this anymore, I want to start a business like you.

All I ask them is: can you start what you want to start without leaving your job? Just spend 1 hour a day? Hire some people from your considerable salary? See where it goes in the next 3 months?

Start your own practice? Great. Start by attending events, giving lectures, writing articles, building your network? Can you give one hour a day towards it? 

There is no point daydreaming. Take the steps you can take today. It is not all in or go home. If you can’t give 1 hr a day to a new side business for a year, and make the sacrifice to grow it, I refuse to believe that you will suddenly quit your well paying job someday and start the next big startup. 

Start where you are, start small, experiment. Do not wait for the day the world will be perfect and you will have sign for the universe to start something big. 

Want to become an extraordinary lawyer? No lighting is going to strike you and turn you into the Flash. Begin working on yourself, one hour per day, and learn new skills.