START ONCE #1: THE PEOPLE WHO'LL MAKE OR BREAK YOU

To every entrepreneur in the world and the ones going to be in the future,

This is for you.

I've been meaning to start this series for a while and in fact, thought of writing a book on it as well but you know what? I won't give my royalty to another lazy Indian publisher, sorry. So, I'd rather start this series right here, on Linkedin, where there's a bigger chance that it'll reach the audience it deserves - dreamers, achievers, entrepreneurs and anybody who's doing what they 'love' passionately. Because that's really the ONLY path to success. Nothing else is. And maybe after this experiment, self-publish a book on this subject really. Why a book on this?

Because it is so so important - who you spend most of your life with and how you deal with small hurdles and opportunities that come your way while you're hustling and bustling in this big bad world to have your own moment of success that you've given everything you have for. No?

Disclaimer: For me, entrepreneur is not 'a person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit' or 'a promoter in the entertainment industry' (whatever that means!).

To me, an entrepreneur is anyone who owns the hell out of anything they are doing in life and earning wealth out of it.

I also work with people keeping this fact in mind by the way. A question I ask myself before I hire anyone - "is this person going to own the job more than me?" If the answer is yes, yay you're hired!

Now coming to the point - I'm doing the 'Start Once' series just to report the 'n' number of people you are about to come across in your entrepreneurial journey. Without them, the probability of you achieving success in life is small, very small. Maybe infinitesimal. How you deal with them - some great, some awful, some legendary, some judgmental people in life - will really define when, how and if you will get to where you want to be in 5/10/15 years from now. That is, if you're starting today.

Why 'Start Once'? Because you essentially START ONCE on the journey of going after your passion and that's all it takes to succeed in life - to start once.

The definition of success is subjective and I respect each and every interpretation of it. But, in my experience, I've realized that with success (of any kind) comes umpteen amounts of challenges and also, opportunities. We must know which ones to pick.

Only one of those challenges and opportunities comes in the form of people, because 'log kya kahenge' is a real thing, I swear. Especially when you start up for the first time.

Today's blog post is about one of the kind of people you come across on you way to success. Your guardian angel (who must approve). For me, it's my mother and for you, it maybe someone else. The person you have to convince of your life's choices before you dive right into the work life of your dreams. Pre-requisite to this is that my mother is the 'mother of the strictest mothers in India'. If I could convince her, you can convince anyone.

I always say, without gratitude and humble behavior, success is not sustainable.

No wonder, the most successful/richest people in the world are the most humble, humanitarian people as well. So, the first test on your path to success with choosing to 'do what you love' (WeWork doesn't pay me to say this stuff) is how you convince your guardian, who is the reason you are alive or surviving today, to do what you want to do in life even if it means no money for a few years and trunk loads of risk? This is also a test of gratitude, pretty much. Because 'not caring' about how the person will react to your wants will be a pretty s*** move and will get you nowhere.

I took it one step at a time. I rebelled for the first time to opt for a course of my choice in my 11th grade in school. I took Commerce with Math instead of Science and I got a bunch of family friends and relatives to convince my mother that it was not 'such a bad thing'. The next time I rebelled was to go abroad for my Master's even though it meant taking a huge education loan not knowing how it'll be paid off. I took the risk and told her I'll pay it off (while in my head, I knew she'd manage). Truth is, she paid it off in the following years.

My journey of rebelling and choosing what I wanted to do started when I was probably 15 or 16 years old (much older than most entrepreneurs I know) because that's when I realised, I could change the way things were going on in my academic life. I was a pretty average student and the only times I got marks were in my 10th and 12th boards, thanks to log kya kahenge I'm guessing. So that was my chance to change my life by choosing a new subject and excelling at it, if I could - again a risk, but more than worth it.

Let's just say, my journey of 'being a rebel' in front of my mom probably ended when my mother grew up with me and it took it's own sweet time. I rebelled in phases instead of doing it all at one. In the process, I made sure she always knew that I was grateful for everything she's given me and she also slowly realized - I was in it to win it. I wouldn't have it any other way or so we believe. Since then, my relationship with the strongest woman I know, my mother, has crossed all kinds of barriers and today, I'm able to talk to her about my business and often, ask her for financial support if needed.

The kind of support I was too afraid to ask for when I first shifted to Mumbai - the city of dreams - to chase my dreams, with a job at Yahoo, a company to run (which was akkarbakkar.com) and a bunch of acting auditions to keep me afloat.

And now, here I am, looking back and smiling at all the fights I had with her, which led to the mother-daughter relationship we have today. Did I mention she's a director in my company YOSO Media and she has a petrol pump of her own in Delhi? Can we call this a happy ending of this chapter? Yes. Can we learn a lesson or two from this? Hell yeah.

Honestly, there's no right or wrong way to deal with your guardians because situation and circumstances for everyone everywhere may differ for obvious reasons. I'm not the same person as a woman entrepreneur sitting in Silicon Valley right now and my problems maybe very different from her problems. What I do believe in is, however, that the journey of success for every person is somewhat similar in terms of the kind of people they deal with through the hustle till they reach that point of success from where there's no looking back. The point I haven't reached yet and it will take a few years but that's okay.

Point remains that - start once and then again, and then again, but remember, your environment makes you. And nobody else will work on that for you, you will have to do it for yourself.

Next kind of person I'll write about is, wait for it.

P.S - If you're reading this, please leave a comment or feedback or any questions you'd like me to address in the next blog post.