Rules are important to avoid chaos and become organized. Rules define how balanced an approach you have in your life. Rules help to posit to the world what you are, and why you are where you are. Societies go by a set of rules; families have rules; schools define rules; organizations have conduct rules. Rules are everywhere. A golden set of rules is like a compass to steer clear of any little ambiguity or indecisiveness. That’s why successful people and organizations, and societies go by rules. In this article, I would like to discuss a few golden rules that young enterprising people might find helpful to start with.
Train your mind to handle everything and anything: Entrepreneurship is all about managing people, finance, and resources. And managing these, to perform well in the market, also have its own constraints and pressures. Whether it’s you or someone else, everyone has to perform under pressure at some or other point in time. There is deadline-related pressure, the monetary pressure, people pressure, and whatnot. But it is all about how we react to pressures and situations. Everyone gets butterflies in their stomach when in a totally uncalled-for situation. But how we make the butterflies fly, is something that we need to arm ourselves with. It is an art to respond to such a stimulus in a positive way. Rather than trying to interpret what our body experiences as nervousness, it’s beneficial if we can interpret it as excitement. Becoming the Yes Man and saying Yes I can do it, I am excited would push you forward rather than backward. No doubt, the experience within the body will be the same, but the interpretation will be positive, hence this positive push. When we train our minds to see the positive and believe in the positive things, entrepreneurship will be fun even under pressure and constraints.
Do anything you want to do and the way you want to do it: There are two ways to see the world. Some see through the half-glass full approach while some as half-glass empty. Some people see the things that they want and some people see the things that prevent them from getting the things that they want. Don’t wait and watch, just do it in whatever way suits you. Nothing is going to stop you from getting whatever you want. Just keep in mind the ethics but at the same time, you don’t have to do it the way everybody else has done it. Do it your way.
Take responsibility for your actions: You may take all the credit in the world for all the things that you do right, as long as you also take responsibility for the things you do wrong. It must be a balanced equation. But the problem is that people want to take only credit and don’t want to be accountable. Say for example, when you start a plant that makes the best quality leather shoes you are known for, you also need to acknowledge that somewhere you have created a polluted environment. You have thrown away your dangerous residue into nature. An environmentally enlightened entrepreneur would take it as his responsibility to clean up the mess. It’s good to see that these days most new-age entrepreneurs acknowledge that being in business is set to impact something in the surrounding, and they need to pay back for what they took. I am not endorsing any product or company, but the way I get it through their advertisements, some personal care brands, have the commitment to plant saplings towards every order made. Because they are taking the responsibility for their actions, they will gain consumer appreciation, and hence their loyalty, in the long run. Taking accountability or responsibility for one’s actions at every step must be in the rulebook if one aims to mark an impact in the minds of the consumers.
Compete with yourself not others: Set a rule to compete with yourself and not others. You are your competitor. Be the infinite player, ask yourself every day how you become a better version of yourself than you were yesterday; how do you make your endeavor better than what it was yesterday. It’s not about getting yourself or your business ranked in the list of best entrepreneurs or enterprises. It should be about how to make sure the work that you are producing is better than the work you produced before. Competition with yourself ensures that you keep up in the game the longest and infinite, not competing with your competitors.
Be genuine: Staying in business or being in a society are one and the same. It’s all about communication. The way we display our emotions, act, and say things, presents what we are and what we believe in. Displaying something else and doing something else can ruin growth, whether it’s your life or your business. People may get attracted to the image that you may have presented, but once they realize you are not what you show, their trust gets broken, and so is the loyalty of customers in business. People look for consistency in your approach. If there is slight deviation, you start losing your ground because people no more can connect to the ideology you symbolized. That’s where businesses start getting labeled as inauthentic. Must have heard or read about many such shooting star businesses that meteorically rose and fell. Entrepreneurs must remember that consumers surround themselves with products or brands that match what they believe or who they are. For example, people who are conscious about health get weirdly drawn towards products and brands that display their products to be 100% natural and organic. A slight deviation ruins the prospects forever. Remember how Maggi had to fight hard to build back its image in India when some reports suggested that it contained Lead. Consumers had started shifting to other alternative noodle brands. It’s another case that alternatives to Maggi’s could not make a mark in the consumer's minds. So the rule is to be genuine always to rule the minds and hearts of your customers.
Stay composed, and be patient: The worst thing that is happening in our generation today is that we are becoming more and more impatient. We don’t have time to wait till the fruit is ripe. We are ready to eat carbide, but we don’t have the patience to see the banana become ripe naturally. This is what exactly happens everywhere, be it in our lives, career fulfillment, or relationships. We don’t get it instantly, and so we quit. To be in business and become successful, you have to be there for a long period, and that requires great patience. There are ups and downs in everything. There are hiccups everywhere. You have to feel in love with whatever you do. As love requires patience, so does entrepreneurship. You have to give it all, to feel the sense of love that eventually builds up when you dedicate yourself to your job. The golden rule to succeed is to be composed and calm.