You ask any student – What do you want to be?

You will get a quick reply -

• Doctor
• Software Engineer
• Singer
• Pilot
• Teacher
• Etc.

Why do different people want to do different things?

Because – they "want" to do that. They have a "desire" to achieve something in the given field. They want to "make a difference" in a given way and want to make a living out of that. Clearly, making money is an important component. But it is not the priority. The attention is on the quality of achievement and how he will come out superior among his peers (we call it competition).

But what we see around in real life is something totally different. That same person when he enters into his professional life, forgets about his wants, desire and the "make a difference" attitude and turns to "make a living out of it" as the only goal. He turns towards mediocre work just to walk through the day. Where is the fire to be "the best" in what he does?

What has gone wrong? What has happened that has turned around the entire goal of life!

If you ask this question to most of the people, they will start playing "pass the blame" game. The person they blame may change from scenario to scenario!

• Someone will blame their employer
  • I don't get opportunity to perform 
  • I do not get paid enough
• Someone will blame their customers
  • My customer do not give me enough space to be creative
  • My employees are not dedicated).
• Someone will blame their education
  • I could not crack GMAT and hence could not proceed with my career of choice
  • My college degree is useless and it has not prepared me for my job

The reality is – "We have taken a shortcut in our life."

Most people want to get the goodies, but will not like to take the pain. To make themselves happy they invent a new theory! It goes like this –

Innerself: Why do we really work?
Outerself: To earn a living!

Innerself: Is this the only way to earn?
Outerself: No

Innerself: So what are my options?
Outerself: Anything that helps me achieve my ultimate goal. That is, to earn a living!

The problem starts when we answer the first question raised by the "Innerself". When someone is in school, the answer is different and is driven by passion. When the same person steps into real life the answer is driven by immediate need.

So, when a person gets this immediate need to be satisfied, he will change course. He will take a shortcut, which looks very rosy. He trades his dream against his immediate need. It is good or bad – I don't know. People may have real compulsions or they might have pre-conceived unreal problems. But this is the day they get out to walk on the "most used" path which takes them away from glory and satisfaction.

I sincirely believe that if a person is passionate and he works for his passion – to be the best in what he does – to do it honestly and to stick to his dream – he will be successful in achieving what he originally dreamed. And there is no bigger satisfaction in life compared to achieving this.

So, to be what you "want to be", hold on to your dream and stick to your passion. Of course nothing comes cheap and there will be adversities on the way, but if you do not take the shortcut, life will treat you like a king.

BTW, while you work hard to achieve what you "want to be", your financial goals are well taken care of.

Why? Because you are not wasting your time in thinking about money. It can result in very high level of anxiety. You are focused on your goal and doing the work, which results in money. Thinking does not get you any money! So you earn much more than you expected out of the immediate "shortcut" that you avoided when taking a decision about your career.

May success belong to you and your dreams come true.

Note:

I have been inspired to write this blog post as I see thousands of IT professionals in India slog in day and out running after their dream career. I have met several young IT professionals who have no ambition to achieve something except a good living. They don't take any pride in what they do. They do "what others want" because they have taken a shortcut.

I was reading somewhere that "India has the youngest population in the world and is poised to take a giant leap …"

But if the young workforce is directionless, then in which direction are we taking the "giant leap". Towards being a mediocre service delivery center for the world? or Towards becoming the largest consumer market in the world?

Let's think!

I have often seen people struggling with their business plan. I have a bit unconventional take on the subject. May be, because it has worked well for me till now. So here is what I sugget:

How many times have you heard?

• He is successful because he has the first mover advantage.
• I have a bright idea. I will seek venture funding and make it BIG!
• There are so many simmilar businesses around? There will be a lot of competition for my new business.

I bet, you must have come across a variant of one of these statements.

They all signify the general perception that a unique idea (or a first mover advantage, or an invention) is the core of a business. Actually this is not true.

Ideas are important. In fact, a business to keep its edge in the industry need to keep re-inventing itself and come up with new ideas, variance, reasons-to-do-business-with and disruptive trends to gain a leading position or maintain his leadership.

Ideas are the fundamental inputs for running a business. They are nothing special. If you cannot think out of the box, or come up with something unique on an ongoing basis, forget about succeeding in this cut-throat competitive economy. It is not for the light hearted ones.

But hold on. The process is execution! There cannot be an output without the process. The output will remain equal to the input if there is no process! It is a pity to see so many people burn midnight oil and hundreds of hours in defining, refining and protecting their idea, but they hardly take the first step forward to execute the same.

History is full of examples where visionary companies have emerged from innovation and smart execution of ideas which were conceived by someone else or invented by someone else.

• Microsoft didnt invented operating systems
• Apple didnt invented GUI
• Google was not the first search engine
• Dell was not the first desktop manufacturer
• Infosys was not the first outsourcing company
• Dhirubhai Ambani didnt set up the first polyster manufacturing unit in the world

The list is endless..

What these guys did and what is important is: See the Gap!

Nothing is perfect. Things happen in a given way which is good, may be better, but never the best. You can always better the effort by finding the gap what makes it imperfect. For a moment think of an "ideal scenario" and how it differs from what you are seeing today in a given context. Are you happy with everything? You cannot be. Its a utopian scenario.

If you see with a consumers' point of view, you will be able to see a gap almost everywhere, everytime and with everything! So if you want to really make the next big search engine – find the gap – find the pain – find the imperfection. And hey – you have an idea! It's so easy.

Now whats next!

• Validate your idea. See if it offers value to its stakeholders and create win-win synergy?
• Plan for the execution of the idea, but keep yourself flexible about its implementation and nitty-grittys.
• Plan for the risks. Risks can never be avoided. They can be managed.
• Set achievable targets and take youir first step.

All this really means – Take action!

So, when you can create idea at random (like an idea factory), you can always differenciate. And when you can differenciate and make things better – go ahead and do it. Take action.

Take baby steps. But try to walk. And soon you will be able to run.

Microsoft was a visionary company. It saw the potential in the business of operating systems. It harnessed its power and made it available for masses in form of DOS. They marketed it well and went on from becoming an innovator (mind you – not an inventor) to a world class company.

Google found that people are not getting the right results and they feel frustrated while searching for what they want on internet. They deviced algorithm which solved the problem. I bet when they started off, it was not a code as complex as you will have in spaceships! But they kept innovating, removing gaps as they saw them.

Social networking concept was initially mastered by a site called Friendster. However there are many more websites who have followed the same fundamental principle and improvised on that to achieve more fame and hiher valuation.

I am like a friend to most of my clients. When I speak to them, I always have this advice at the back of my mind. I advise them to do things differently to make it better in small increments based on those small ideas that you can generate at your will. To start taking the first steps towards a better web-application or a better business model. I am a strong advocate of compunding of small improvements done over a period of time to result in a considerable net effect.

So, its all about seeing the gap. Building small bridges and walking over them to leave your competition behind.

I look forward to see you all at the top at the game – ahead of the guys who invented the same.

Best of luck!

A quick tip for budding entrepreneurs:

If your business starts at the right time, you can extract maximum growth by getting ready when the industry segment gets the peak demand. I strongly suggest that a new business should be started during the "low-tide", i.e. when markets are not doing well and industry sentiments are not positive. It helps in many ways:

1. You can get the best talent available in the industry due to lay off by major players.

2. You will not have major competition and you can prepare your competitive edge "in hiding" to give surprise to your competitors.

3. Tough times results in innovation. It is highly probable that your company will have the "innovation" advantage as you try to come up the adversities of a low-lying market. This innovation can become a catalyst when the markets are strong and can become the deciding factor.

4. You can concentrate in building the right processes, measurements, quality control systems and genetic-composition of your company which will result in its rapid growth when the right time comes.

5. Your expenses will be lower in building the fundamental framework for the company.

It will well known that markets have both the ups and downs. I feel "downs" should be well utilized to prepare the company for taking maximum advantage of the "ups". It makes much more business sense and also keep your spirits up!

Note: It is important to be patient. It is very important to know that you are preparing for the "good days" and, it is most important to know that you should not blow up all your money, since capital is another thing that you need to scale up your company fast when the right time comes.

There is a mad rush out here. Large swanky new shopping malls are opening every month to give the desired lifestyle to the next-generation Indians who believe in “work hard – party harder”. An average middle class Indian is earning well and want to live life BIG size.

When I was in Bath (U.K.) in 1999-2000, the difference in lifestyle (between India and U.K.) used to amaze me. I dreamt that one day India will follow suit. But I never thought that it will be so soon!  A lot of credit goes to the new age industries like IT, Biotechnology, Telecommunication followed by resurgence in media, real-estate, finance and retail.

So many new, dynamic and high-net-worth consumers are being created.

But, if you read the fine prints, we are jumping on to eat the fruits before it has ripened and are not putting enough effort to plan new trees.

We are growing because of the knowledge economy. Keeping this fact in mind, it is time that we ask some hard questions –

What are we doing to keep our self at the forefront of this economy?
Do we create and disseminate knowledge which will keep us at the ahead of competition?
Do we have enough universities and institutions which can equip our next generation of knowledge workers?
How will we educate such a fast growing population?
How will we learn to be creative and not repetitive?

The truth is – Our education system is pre-historic and there is no radical transformation since independence in 1947. There is no impetus on practical knowledge and original creation.

And the worst news is that we are trying to open more malls than quality educational institutions. We are happy with our IIT and IIM legacy which creates few thousand professionals every year. We are happy to quote these names and feel proud that these are few of the most respected institutions worldwide. Now ask few more questions:

What percentage of people in India wants to have higher education?
Out of this, what percentage actually gets quality higher education?
How many original world changing inventions have been done at IIT or IIM?
Where are the IIT & IIM alumni? How many of them are contributing towards the growth of India?
How many of IIT & IIM alumni have taken on the responsibility to spread the knowledge they have acquired?

The answers will give the real state of affairs!

For continued progress, India needs a mechanism to produce quality people. For that we need hundreds of quality institutions. Some of them will grow to become “center of excellence” like MIT, Stanford and CMU. But others should not be far behind!

Before, our government and business houses deliver the glamorous new India, they need to sit back and work out how to create the drivers of the new economy.

We need universities, not malls. Considerable amount of investments and efforts should be directed to create a conductive environment to create academia along with the industry. One cannot grow without the other.

The conclusion is:
We are reaping the harvest of the seeds that we sowed years back! But we are not sowing new seeds to secure our future. Let us do that before it is too late!

Entrepreneurship knows no barriers!

Last year while searching for an office in Annanagar area of Chennai, I came across an entrepreneur who is remarkably different and inspiring. He reaffirmed my belief that entrepreneurship does not need boardrooms, stylish presentations and big venture capitalist to become successful.

I met this guy who runs an auto (three-wheeler taxi). He has put up "clear and consistent" advertising inside his auto and in the Annanagar area that he can arrange for rented premises. When he receive a call he is quick to react. He behaves in a very courteous manner and show you properties which exactly match you specification.

To add to this, one do not need to spend a penny on transportation as he will take you around free of cost in his three-wheeler to show selected properties.

I took some photographs of this person who found out how he can improve his own life and of others (people he serve) including his employee (Oh yes! I saw that he also employ a person now). He deserves to earn many times more than most three-wheeler taxis, because he has improvised.

Note: The guy sitting inside the auto is the boss! The bald guy is his agent / employee!

Few lessons that we can learn from him:

1. He primarily operate within a geographical limit. Thus he can get first-hand information on the properties vacant and possible tenants in that area.

2. He has used cross-selling on steroids. A person sitting in this three-wheeler gets a ride and pays for. If he is interested in renting out his property or taking a property on rent, he will immediately get contacts without any additional expense.

3. He knows what his customer exactly wants. He was right on target. I thin the reason was – He listened.

My best wishes to this gentleman and I hope to see him doing better everyday!