Being a teacher of professional students who are striving hard to complete their exams and get the qualification to start a life they dream of, is not an easy job. Its my job to give them confidence that they can do well in the exam while they are studying and taking classes with me but even bigger challenge is to keep them motivated.
Every does something for their own reasons and one must have at least one good reason to remember to keep pushing and face the hardships. My experience so far tells me that more simpler your reason is more stronger the motivation you get. But lets skip this for another day and lets discuss business
I am strong preacher that everyone MUST do a business. Small scale, large scale, tiny scale, mega scale, macro, micro… doesn’t matter. But run a business of your own. Part time, full time, once a week, twice a month… whatever works for you. But do it!
Remember, if you are good for someone else, it is only because he knows you better than yourself! So it all depends on how much you know and how good you know
If I look back and try to categorize my students, friends, colleagues with whom I ever had a discussion on doing business I can easily categorize them in two types.
1 The ones who Don’t Know!
In few words: No good for their own good
One common trait: Unsure if it will work
They think they don’t know what to do. Most of the time they have ideas but unsure if it will be a success story. Almost always asking “to give them trust” or requesting me to say something good so that they can feel confident.
My conversation with this category starts almost the same way. For them for some reason I or someone else important for them is like a Yoda and they are only waiting to “confirm” what they think is right. So it starts like this:
Type 1: What should I do?
Me: [After a little pause] What do you want to do?
Type 1: I don’t know! If I know what should I ask you?
Me: Will you do something I ask you to do?
Type 1: Yeah! I need someone to tell me!
Me: Sure?
Type 1: Positive! Go ahead
Me: Go home. Make time. And ask yourself what do you want to do?
What is one thing that you always wanted to do. I know you might have many things on your mind that you want to do, to get, to achieve, to reach. But if I ask you to do find me ONE thing that you so dearly want that you will sacrifice every other want in your life, what will it be?
99.1% of the time they react: Mmmm… aaaaa…. I… don’t know what I want! And the remaining 0.89% say: I don’t know what I want is good for me.
It may be anything that you want to buy or know or visit or get or achieve, whatever it is! Just make up your mind on ONE thing and clear out all the other distractions at the moment. Out of many cut down to single important one.
Believe me its not going to be an easy task! It might sound and look easy while reading, but give it a try and ask yourself just ONE thing you want in your life for which you can sacrifice every other thing. Only then you will realize how confused your priorities and thought process is. You cannot achieve something if you don’t have achieved this singularity first!
It is this mess of so many wants and possibilities that they remain undecided most of the time. Get one and forget the rest!
I get really sad sometimes when I am asked, “I am looking for only one person who can tell me that he/she believes in me”. You are looking for only one person right? You already have one and its YOU yourself! If you don’t believe in yourself… you can’t make others to believe in you… and if you believe in yourself… nobody else really matters anyway!
2 The ones who Know!
In few words: Too good for their own good
One common trait: Absolutely sure it will not work
Alright! Confessing right in the beginning I really get annoyed talking to such people. Because they are so good at making a big no out of everything. They always come up with either a technical, financial, economic, social, moral, academic, religious justification of NOT doing! Always hinting on what is NOT there and thus, hence, therefore, concluded that its IMPOSSIBLE.
They are barriers to their own self. Finding the impossible out of every possible. If they are told to do one thing they ask for money, if you give them money, they ask for support, if you give them support, they ask for knowledge. But wait! Few minutes back they knew so much that they were contending and opposing everything you told them?
What I reckon is that they are too afraid to challenge their own beliefs and they get satisfied by making up justifications (if they don’t have ones in reserve already) to escape the hardwork. Instead of finding the reasons that can make things, they probe for things that will break and overthink and overreact on them.
They hate everything! For them nothing is going right or if something is going right so far then its temporary. So instead of putting an effort to keep it the correct way (let alone correcting anything) they have already accepted a defeat and now just waiting for their “farsightedness” to be a reality!
Nothing is perfect from the start. Heck none of us even knew how to speak and think! We have even forgotten the days when we used to pee and weep! Remember? Yeah say everyone is a baby once.
Yes! everything starts like a baby. You have to take baby steps. Learn on the way. Adapt as things progress. Try to control as it happens. Repeat! That’s what you do! YOU ACTUALLY DO!
Nobody is asking you to start a business with 10 million in bank. There are many business that make millions a year selling 1 dollar item. If this is difficult to understand than think of this; you only need to do ONE thing to sell it million times. Just do it at least once, give your best and instead of thinking what CANNOT be done, think of what CAN be done. No talk until you are not fully done!
So if you are not doing business yet and just thinking! Which type are you?