Your
young business will demand your time 24 X 7 and you will be expected to take
responsibility of everything in the company – from leading and strategizing for
the business to ensuring the coffee machine is working and the toilets are
clean! It is a very lonely job at the top as an entrepreneur and you need to
retain your sanity throughout your journey.
Based
on my personal experiences of building Guardian, I am sharing some of the key
non-business related factors that must be kept in mind by startup entrepreneurs.
Manage your health and follow a daily routine
I started my
entrepreneurial journey when I was 46, a very late age in life and I definitely
could not afford to fall sick or do anything that would jeopardise my health. I
was betting my career, my family’s future and my entire credibility on this
venture and there was no way that I could fall sick and stall my journey before
I had achieved what I had set out to do.
Work pressure while
building any new business will be very intense and an entrepreneur has very few
choices except to stay well and stay fit. He needs to build the stamina to keep
going, in the face of all possible adversity. Falling sick is not an option
that can be considered.
There will be many
moments when every entrepreneur wants to throw in the towel simply because the
stress becomes unbearable yet unlike any other individual, it is important for
an entrepreneur to keep going because the light at the end of the tunnel is the
achievement of his dream. No matter how much stress you may carry inside you,
it is very important to “appear” absolutely calm from the outside.
It is therefore
important to stay fit and healthy and to ensure that you and your family are
protected in the unlikely event something goes wrong either in the business or
in your health. One decision I took when I started Guardian was that I have to
remain fit and healthy. I could not afford to fall sick and therefore I would
have to “will” myself into staying healthy.
Keeping a routine to
balance time for your work, family and health is essential.
Don’t let your mind give up
So many battles are won
or lost if the mind accepts defeat or gives up too easily.
When I chat with
entrepreneurs who started their dream company but gave up or stopped or
professionals who gave up the “joys” of a corporate battle for supremacy to
become an entrepreneur, I know that they gave up the fight because they had not
built the internal resilience in their own minds to stay the course. Like a
game of golf where one plays much better golf when one’s mind is at rest,
success and failure in your Startup is also all in one’s mind.
I have found that
giving up is very easy and several times in my own journey both as a
professional as well as an entrepreneur, I have had the temptation to give up
and call it a day because all choices seemed to be tough and insurmountable. As
I look back at my life, I wonder what kind of a person I would have been had I
given up each time my body told me to stop but my mind forced me to carry on.
Every entrepreneur must
develop mental strength to take on tough tasks and select from equally tough
choices.
Remember that the joy
of achieving a difficult and possibly insurmountable task that seemed
impossible also gives its own high.
Don’t lose sight of your personal life
In your desire to
achieve all your goals you will not think about the time you are spending at
work. Being your own boss is a great feeling. You get to choose which 18 hours
of the day you will work!
As an entrepreneur, I
always encouraged my colleagues to take leave every year. Whenever someone told
me that he was working over twelve hours per day on a regular basis, my
response to him was simply “If you cannot finish your allotted work in office
timings, you are either over worked and need an assistant or very inefficient.”
Similarly, when someone
told me that he had not taken any leave for so many years, my response to such
people was “You have not done the company a favour. I would like you to take
your leave and come back to work rejuvenated.” I have never refused any manager
his leave whenever he asked for leave.
I have often spoken to
entrepreneurs who tell me that they don’t have the time to take a vacation and
I have never believed any of them. If a person cannot take time off for himself
and give his mind and body a rest, then there is a problem brewing in the long
run for such an individual. It is important for every individual to take time
off and spend time with one’s family.
Build internal resilience and stay calm
It is very important
for anyone embarking on any journey to build strong internal resilience. A
number of times people fail to complete their journey because they give up too
early. For you, giving up must never be been an option. It is more challenging
and probably more appropriate to lean into the storm rather than running away
from it.
Every entrepreneur has
to develop a “thick skin” and learn to accept all kinds of comments about
himself and his company. Developing the ability to stay calm in the face of
adversity is an important quality and should be developed very early in your
entrepreneurial life. This will serve you very well.
Remember to set your own compensation
Most
entrepreneurs who want to build large businesses and want to create institutions
tend to overlook their own compensation package in the belief that since the
company was “their own”; they should first build the company before adding
additional costs of their own. This is an entrepreneur’s unique way of saying
that he is trying to conserve cash by not spending anything on himself. This is
a big mistake that most entrepreneurs make.
When
you bring in external shareholders and then private equity funds you will soon
realise that no one will appreciate the so called sacrifice that you thought you
had made for the company. The standard response you will get from your
investors will be “Why didn’t you take a salary? We did not ask you not to
compensate yourself”.
No
entrepreneur should undersell his own capability. Not compensating oneself or
under compensating oneself is making a sacrifice that no one will appreciate in
the future and not worth doing in the long run. Most entrepreneurs make a lot
of sacrifices. Cutting back on your salary or not taking a salary must never be
a sacrifice that you should make.
When
money is needed at the end of each month to pay staff salaries and pay the
bills, everyone will look towards you and expect you to have the answers.
The
Buck Stops at your desk each time and every time.
*******************
The author is the founder Chairman of
Guardian Pharmacies and the author of 5 best-selling books, Reboot. Reinvent.
Rewire: Managing Retirement in the 21st Century; The Corner Office; An Eye for
an Eye; The Buck Stops Here - Learnings of a #Startup Entrepreneur and The Buck
Stops Here – My Journey from a Manager to an Entrepreneur.
Twitter: @gargashutosh
Instagram: ashutoshgarg56
Blog: ashutoshgargin.wordpress.com |
ashutoshgarg56.blogspot.com
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