By Bharathi Murali:
This is a small fringe of conversation between two sets of people, four in all.
Father to his friend as they were walking along the beach
Friend 1: So, tell me about your son’s plans. He is graduating this year I suppose.
Father: Is this the best question you can come up with? He is jobless, wasting money, aimless in life. He lost all the skills he honed in the past and is now having a shapeless future – spending money in something that is least related to what he did.
Son to his friend on the way back from a movie
Friend 2: Dude, movie was so mundane… So what is your plan dude?
Son: Seriously. At my end, I have figured out something great. I am focusing and spending on it with a purpose. I am planning to start a business into the areas of agriculture.
Friend 2: but you are a commerce guy yaar?
Did the son really succeed in his agricultural venture? Did he know anything about fruits and vegetables after slogging with numbers throughout his academic life? What does he know? –Â He knows everything, from harvesting to haggling.
Welcome to the World of Entrepreneurs in Making
Entrepreneurship has different definitions, leave the stereotypic definition given by Wikipedia. Even at the basic level, from the view point of a father and a son, the term differs. What is this all about?
Entrepreneurship is not something the young minds start up when they are out of options. It is confined to the few who can provide options to the rest millions. The minds of the youth, who the world thinks are nuts to come up with strange ides are the most powerful ones and can kindle any amount of energy from the people.
Let us look at this, in a class of fifty, 2% will contribute to the elite-class; the half would go to mediocre-class. The rest are people who we think are worthless. Pausing here, the 2% and the rest 50% are likely to get placed and go sit and do the same typical work and live the rat race. The rest may choose the most travelled path, the esoteric would choose the one less travelled.
The domain has shrunk enough for delving. That esoteric are the achievers.
If you are in a quandary thinking what to do after graduation, or you are confused whether entrepreneurship is a good choice or not, here is the enlightenment capsule for you-
- Burn all your yardsticks. You are your master. Stop the concept of parallelizing yourself with another peer.
- Think, think, think until you find an answer to this question- “What you loved the most since childhood, that hidden passion?”
- Contemplate till you reach the clarity zone, do not get convinced with haphazard answers, giving up is not the spirit.
- Look what you can do to the society, your contribution to the nation’s GDP – the place where you are filling a gap that someone else is not.
- What did you earn to eat the grain this moment?
- Read the inspirational books that could motivate your enthusiasm levels and bring you to the peak. (erase the attitude of hating the self-help books)
- Inspirational quotes, thoughts, real-life stories can do wonders in one’s life. Autobiographies and biographies include the mistakes the grave ones committed by them in their lifetime, professional and personal. We do not have enough time to make mistakes and then learn, learn from their lessons.
- Cerebrations, public-welfare thoughts, selfless attitude will create a purpose in life and make you live for that purpose.
- Live your dream, your purpose rather than your parents. Learn this; nothing can be achieved through intimidation or coercion.
- You might need great amount of passion, purpose and networking.
- It is not all about Facebook and Twitter. Things, the world goes beyond that. Key ingredients of a startup would be the courage, if you lack the pulse and purpose you do not deserve it, funds the driving physical force of any firm. Funds to a business are like how spine is to the human skeletal structure.
- Entrepreneurs need not always be Tata or Birla or Ambanis, every many with a different thought to make a difference is an entrepreneur in the making. The magnitude of the achievement lies on the attitude and the nullity of platitude. Amounts spent, wasted, time poured into trash all does not matter if idea is shaped strongly.
- No real achiever will regret if the future seems bleak.
- Entrepreneurship is an art, not a science. A very novel startup will create revolutions. There can be given hundreds of instances.
If you are still hazy about your career or skeptic in choosing entrepreneurship as your career fearing its aftermath consequences the right place to refer will be the budding entrepreneurs.
This is no mistake. Everything needs a start, why not be the beginning?