Are you being held hostage by your “busyness”?

Beware: “Busyness” is a silent predator. It creeps up unnoticed and ends up enslaving you!

Earlier this month I curated and anchored a very powerful Conversation in our #UncommonLeader Series, hosted by the Madras Management Association. My guest in this Edition was K P Krishnan (KP), co-Founder of Klachak.com and Captr.in, two ventures that are democratizing the visual content creation and management space.

AVIS & KP – #UncommonLeader Conversation; Photo Credit: Raam Frames

I have known KP for over two decades now.

He started off as a factory hand in his own father’s factory and never let anyone know he was the owner’s son. Then, when someone pointed out that he can never escape the fact of who he really was, he quit. After working briefly as an assistant to an ad filmmaker, and after stints at an internet café and a digital marketing firm, he went overseas.  He had a glorious 10-year stint in international sales and marketing that took him to over 40 countries.

In 2011, opting out of a “stagnating career”, KP returned to India to be a photographer. But the fashion and wedding photography scene did not excite him. Instead his sharp entrepreneurial acumen spotted an unstated need in the market: there were far too many talented assistants (to senior photographers) who were unable to launch their careers independently because they did not have the means to acquire expensive photography equipment. Seizing the business opportunity, in 2013, KP co-founded (with his partners) Klachak.com – a one-stop rental portal for all photography equipment and accessories. Today Klachak has 6000 customers across India. Its success led KP to launch Captr.in – a specialist Image Processing Outsourcing service – in 2017. In just two years, Captr has over 600 image processing experts catering to the needs of institutional and retail customers across a diverse spectrum of industries. Between Klachak and Captr, customers can rent cameras, lights and other accessories, shoot images and videos, even rent a studio, and have all their post-production requirements serviced! Simply, KP’s entrepreneurial offerings have democratized the visual content creation and management space. And this has been achieved with a collective, on-board, team size of just 30! (Catch my #UncommonLeader Conversation with KP here.)

Yet, KP’s not the typical, stressed out, forever-running-on-a-treadmill, hyper-obsessed entrepreneur. He’s really a cool, fun, ideas guy! Important, while he invests himself in every idea he conceives, owns and leads, he never gets stuck in any of them. Which is why, despite running thriving ventures, he finds the time to play the drums and jam with his music gang; he cycles and treks, he is an avid wildlife photographer and loves goofing off with his family. To me, he’s able to be this way, only because he is always on his businesses; he’s never in them!

And there lies the big secret to a living full, meaningful, Life. A secret that KP intuitively knows and something that you too can learn.

Which is, at every stage you must pause, reflect and ask yourself these questions: Why am I doing what I am doing? Is what I am doing making me happy despite the challenging, punishing schedule I maintain? Are the outcomes of my efforts flowing freely although there is a lot of hard work involved? Or am I constantly struggling, suffering, harried and unhappy?

Simply, asking these questions help you train yourself in the important skill of being on the business (of whatever you do) and not get mired in it! This means, on a spiritual plane, as the Bhagavad Gita says, learning to live in the world and yet be above it; and as the Bible too says, be in the world but not of it! And in a practical, every day, sense, this means knowing when and where to draw the line between doing something that gives you joy – while engaging you intensely and immersively – and doing something that suffocates you, that drains you of all energy and takes away your Happiness! This further means choosing wisely – choosing not to do most of all that which makes you unhappy.

Beware:“Busyness” is a silent predator. It creeps up unnoticed and ends up owning your Life. It camouflages itself as passion and seduces you with a slew of worldly success measures – fame, money and power. Or it presents itself as seemingly unavoidable social responsibilities disguised as familial needs and cultural values. It often reasons strongly, logically, making you believe that you are doing the right thing by postponing your Happiness. It uncannily keeps warning you that something grave will happen if you don’t busy yourself with more things to do (TTD). And pretty soon, unwittingly, you are a slave of your “busyness”. You keep on doing stuff because you just have to do them; not doing them makes you restless, nervous and scared. Worse, sometimes, you end up doing things only to keep other people happy! Undoubtedly, eventually, “busyness” is an addiction – as ruinous as smoking or alcohol is.

To be sure though, “busyness” is not doing many, many things. It is not about being busy and not having enough time on your hands. It is about inflicting a lot of activity upon yourself without a sense of Purpose, without mindfulness, without understanding what matters most in your Life and why!

I talk from my lived experience. I have lived that unintelligent Life for over a decade. I have forsaken many a family milestone, skipped several school events of my children and have found myself working from cinema halls or dinner tables and even on Sundays and while on vacations. I often convinced myself to be this way with a powerful rationale. I always wanted to grow our business and make it a world-beater. I always wanted fix things at work now, instantaneously. I always thought there would be another day, when there would be no pending TTDs when I could retire, relax and live Life happily ever after. And then the bankruptcy happened in end-2007 – a material state that we continue endure. Thankfully, it jolted me awake up from my stupor! (Read more here in my book: Fall Like A Rose Petal) Else, I may not have lived to tell you my tale, to share what I have learned about intelligent living – from Life!

And this is what I have learned. Your Life is a limited-period offer. Whatever you want to do, must be done in this lifetime of yours. Before it is all over. And believe me when your number is called, you have to go, no matter who you are and how much of your business here, on this planet, remains unfinished. So, don’t postpone your Happiness. Don’t allow yourself to get mired in the business of everyday challenges. Hoist yourself above them all. Review and reprioritize what you want to do daily – surely, choose whatever must be done to earn a living, but please also choose to do all that which makes you come alive! Simply, don’t squander your time here allowing yourself to be held hostage by your “busyness”!

Note: AVIS and Vaani are the happynesswalas. They believe their Life’s Purpose is Inspiring ‘Happyness’! They are going through a fascinating Life-changing experience – a crippling bankruptcy!! Look them up here: www.avisviswanathan.in and www.avinitiatives.co.in.

Invest in your “Me Time” and, like Nandini, fly!

“I am a bird. And I want to fly.”

When she was barely six, Nandini Nair recalls writing down this aspiration for herself in a school assignment that invited each student in her class to share what or who they wanted to be when they grew up.

Over 25 years later, Nandini recounted this memory, in a Conversation that she had with me in the second Edition of our Happyness Reboot Series on Wednesday, 4^th December. Happyness Reboot is a live, reflective, non-commercial Conversation Series curated by Vaani and me that explores human stories and discusses the opportunities, issues, challenges and emotions that truly impact Happiness at the Workplace.

In this Edition of the Series, we explored “Me Time” – a basic necessity and primary responsibility that everyone consistently ignores!

The truth is that almost everyone, at some point in time, feels like they are running on a treadmill, chasing meetings, chores and deadlines endlessly. They often feel they are sleep-deprived.  And even as a sense of feeling incomplete and unfulfilled is gnawing at them, they are searching for a quiet place and time. Some people even feel they are heading for a breakdown!

These are a few reasons why we believe you must create time – your own “Me Time”, for your Happiness, to be you, to lose yourself in whatever you love doing!

Nandini is a fine example of someone who has managed to pull off this amazing feat of creating and sustaining her “Me Time” consistently over the past decade. Here’s why I say this. Nandini is a young, dynamic, Indian Revenue Service (IRS) Officer, who is currently a Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax. But despite her high-energy, high-pressure work routine, Nandini finds the time to immerse herself in art and dance. She’s no amateur; she holds shows and performances as any consummate artist would!

Nandini in conversation with AVIS. Picture by Raam Frames

How does she do it, I asked Nandini, pointing out that several people in her position may have well discontinued doing what they love doing citing work and family pressures.

Nandini’s reply showcases the understanding she has about what Life is and what she wants out of it:

• “To me, my art, whether it is theatre or dance or painting, is not just another hobby. It offers me a ‘great escape’ from the stresses of everyday Life. While theatre helps me meet new people from diverse backgrounds and enhances my awareness of the power of community, dance – even as a daily practice – is an opportunity to be physically and spiritually expressive. And painting for me is a private, intensely personal, experience; each of my paintings is a ‘rescuer’ that has helped me during my troubled, anguished times…each work of mine has me, my feelings, deeply embedded in them.”
• “Without my art, I would have gone mad!”
• “I don’t have all the time that people imagine I have to do many things. I am not a very systematic person either. I simply create the time when I have to do what I have to do – whether it is my art or whether I am fulfilling my professional responsibilities.”
• “I don’t like stereotypes. I don’t believe that long hours mean greater productivity. As long as you are completing what you are setting out to do, you are doing great.”
• “Which is why I am not just an artist or an IRS officer…I am clear that I am a bird and I want to fly…if this means I will keep trying new experiences that enrich me and allow me to express myself…I surely will find the time, I will find the means, to do all of them.”

Nandini Nair. Picture by Vinodh Velayudhan

This clarity is indeed remarkable. Nandini refuses to allow herself to be boxed in by society’s views of how people must lead their lives. Society imagines that a working woman will not necessarily be able to do multiple things beyond fulfilling her professional and family roles or that everyday living pressures will suck your Life out so much that you won’t have the energy or time to indulge in immersive experiences like art or music or whatever it is that you are deeply passionate about. But Nandini’s I-am-a-bird-and-I-want-to-fly outlook throws social stereotypes out of the window. So she always finds the time, her “Me Time”, to be who she truly is – and to, well, fly!!!

Vaani and I totally relate to Nandini’s outlook. We too have evidently busted stereotypes by being the happynesswalas even though, in a worldly sense, we are failed entrepreneurs! On Wednesday evening, I also shared why we both completely understand and champion the value of “Me Time”.

To be sure, in 2004, when I was 36, my diabetologist had served me a wake-up call – my sugar levels were horribly high, my cholesterol was showing a worrisome spike too, I had a tobacco habit, I was drinking daily and, at 95 kilos, I certainly was over-weight. Shaken up from my stupor, I embraced a meditative practice called mouna – observing silence for an hour daily – which helped me drop anchor in a time of great stress and strife. Mouna transformed me. Physically, it helped me focus on my health; I lost 22 kilos in six months back then! It was mouna too that helped me and Vaani understand the transient nature of Life and helped us learn the art of being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. It is through learning this art that we discovered the ability to be happy despite our circumstances.

And it was mouna that brought me back to writing. You see, I am first a writer; I have spent most of the years in the first decade of my career as a journalist. But the lure of worldly success, the challenges of entrepreneurship, the tribulations of trying to save a sinking business – all these had weaned me away from writing for almost 15+ years. But as we descended into our bankruptcy in 2007, when fear and darkness engulfed us, mouna reminded me of what I was missing – writing! I found writing therapeutic and a deeply immersive daily practice. I started with writing this Blog, which I sustained daily for 10 years on the trot, without missing a single day! I still maintain much of that prolificity though I do take reflective pauses. My return to writing led me to publishing my book, Fall Like A Rose Petal, in 2014. And through doing all of this, Vaani and I awoke to our Life’s Purpose – Inspiring ‘Happyness’!

So, simply, “Me Time” has changed the game for us. It introduced mouna to us, it is our anchor, it inspires us to Happiness, it sustains my daily writing and it has truly aided and abetted our survival through this enduring, tumultuous, 12-year phase of our bankruptcy. It has helped us stand in the midst of the everyday battle of Life, in the whirl and madness of the chaos that surrounds us, and has taught us the ability to be unmoved.

Which is why, I concluded Wednesday’s Conversation by sharing a key learning from our own lived experience. I said that intelligent living simply means recognizing the perishable nature of Life and choosing not to postpone Happiness. It means focusing only on what matters most to you, on what you love doing. A simple beginning can be made by investing in your “Me Time”, in one hour on yourself daily – start with your health and with what you are deeply passionate about, what makes you come alive! When you do create that one hour for yourself, you will, magically, see how you gain control of the remaining 23 hours of the day!

Note: AVIS and Vaani are the happynesswalas. They believe their Life’s Purpose is Inspiring ‘Happyness’! They are going through a fascinating Life-changing experience – a crippling bankruptcy!! Look them up here: www.avisviswanathan.in and www.avinitiatives.co.in.

The Confessions and Learnings of Two “Failed” Entrepreneurs

Ever since Tuesday morning, when the NDTV App on my phone broke the news of Café Coffee Day’s V.G.Siddhartha going missing, Vaani and I have not stopped sharing notes on our own 23-year-old entrepreneurial journey. We both are, in a worldly sense, “failed” entrepreneurs too. And so we could relate, in more ways than one, to the letter purportedly written by Siddhartha and to the agony that he may have been experiencing that led him to jump off that bridge on Monday evening. This post offers some of the many learnings we have gleaned from our lived experiences – these may be relevant to all entrepreneurs and to any student of Life.

(I am abstaining from commenting or conjecturing on what may have been the nature of Siddhartha’s financial deals and troubles; at the time of posting this, his body has been recovered from the Nethravathi river near Mangaluru.)

“A quick overview of our entrepreneurial story and Life currently”

In 1996, Vaani and I set up Asia’s First Reputation Management Firm, imagequity+. We grew fast – expanding to have a footprint across India and South East Asia in 7 years. But an ethical decision we took 16 years ago (in 2003) to separate from an unethical client – to whom we had a 60 % revenue exposure – plunged us into a debt crisis, and eventually into a bankruptcy in end-2007, from which we are still to recover! In over 11 years now, our income has never really been consistent nor has it ever covered even our living expenses as a family. In fact, we have endured, and continue to go through, long spells of worklessness and pennilessness. So, despite all our efforts, our debt to over 170 creditors still remains unpaid and we continue to, at most times, hang patiently, purposefully, from the edge of a precipice, with hope and Faith, investing unfailingly in a lot of hard work and prayer.

“The pangs of entrepreneurship are similarly debilitating”

Our contexts may appear to be different – Siddhartha had a large business empire, we ran a small consulting Firm; he came from a well-endowed business family, we are first generation entrepreneurs – our parents were salaried middle-class people; he had built a huge asset base, and we had created no material assets; his financial troubles may have been to the tune of hundreds of crores, our debt pales in significance at Rs.5 crore. Yet, when Life challenges you, the pangs of entrepreneurship are, we believe, always similarly debilitating. It feels just the same, irrespective of the scale of your business – when despite all your integrity and toil, your dream comes crashing, when your Vision goes up in smoke, when cash and debt woes stifle not just your imagination but your very being, when your choices and decisions in Life come back to bite and haunt you, when the entire world appears to chase you down with cudgels, when darkness, worry and fear incessantly consume you…

Vaani and I have been there. And we have felt this ‘hopeless-clueless-no-go’ feeling. Intensely. Fearfully. Numbly.

We remember writing to our investors in January 2008. Our Investor Memorandum was titled ‘Building a Business on Faith and Patience’ (see picture below). And the first, opening, line of that investor proposal was, to us, authentic and powerful. It read – “This Firm will survive.” That’s what entrepreneurs are often driven by – an inexplicable sense of belief and confidence – even when they have hit a dead-end. Only one of the many investors we approached got back. And he bluntly told me: “AVIS, we don’t want to invest in a ‘Failure’.”

Vaani and I still recall that stab on our self-esteem – we felt totally hopeless, clueless, worthless and useless.  Suddenly, it was clear to us: no one wanted to consider our original and thus-far-perfectly-executed business idea, our values, our integrity of Purpose – they were all cast aside in one fell swoop. All people wanted to do was to point to our abysmal financial metrics and deny us any more investment. Our debt had ballooned by then, revenues were nil all through 2007, and all we were doing was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul!

It was a very, very dark time in our Life.

Well, seriously, what do you do, when you don’t know what to do…?

I have always found words failing me when I have tried to describe that gnawing, aching, quivering, feeling in us. An anonymous Tamizh poet is the one, we believe, who even gets close to putting words to that feeling. This verse below was written sometime in the 18^th or 19^th century (I have cross-verified this with heritage and literary expert Madhusudanan Kalaichelvan); it describes Ravana’s fear at seeing Rama’s arrow approach him in the final moments of the battle in Lanka. The poet equated this fear, among other apt references, to the anguish of a person in debt:

“vidam konda meenai polum
venthazhal mezhugai polum
padam konda panthal vayil
patriya therai polum
dhidam konda rama banam
serukkalathu utra podhu
kadan kondar nenjam polum
kalanginan Ilangai vendhan”

It translates roughly as: “Like how a poisoned fish flutters, like how light flickers in a candle, like how a toad caught in a snake’s mouth twitches, like how restless is the mind of a person in debt, such was Ravana’s state of mind when he saw the brave Rama’s arrows coming at him in the battlefield.”

We have felt darkness choke us on the night of 31^st December 2007, when we were left with just Rs.2000/- in Life; and with a debt pile of Rs.5 crore, that we are still to repay. We have felt that helplessness on 3^rd March 2008 when Aanchal, our daughter, turned 13, and we did not have money to even buy her a rose. We have felt completely clueless when we gave away the last Eighty Rupees we had to ride an auto to a friend’s place for dinner on 29^th April 2014; that was the night we turned penniless. We lived through the next several months – groping in the darkness, dealing with imponderables, and turning penniless again on four different occasions! These few instances (from so many) may offer some graphic perspective into what continues to be a seemingly never-ending, enduring, saga of survival. Of staying afloat even when we are shackled and locked down in every material sense! And even as I write this, several challenges continue to plague us – those that come with a prolonged bankruptcy…including legal upheavals and a forever deficit cash situation with regard to covering our living expenses.

However, these 11+ years have been special in a very beautiful way. They have awakened us to our Life’s Purpose, they have given our Life meaning. Through this dark time, we have learnt what Life and Happiness are truly all about.

“Lesson # 1: True Entrepreneurship = Deploying Resilience”

The first lesson we have learnt from this phase is that entrepreneurship is a state of mind – it is not quite just about being ‘self-employed’ or creating jobs or taking an idea to market or a getting a valuation and/or eventually exiting the venture, cash-rich, to ‘live happily ever after’. Entrepreneurship is fundamentally about bringing an attitude of ownership to whatever you do. So, it is really about taking responsibility for the gift you have been given, of this Life; a gift which you didn’t even ask for! We must understand that the very nature of Life is risky – it is totally inscrutable, there are no guarantees, there is so much uncertainty in every moment – anything, absolutely anything, can happen. So, entrepreneurship is taking ownership of the Life we have and embrace the risks involved in every choice we make in Life. But we must remember that Life is no MS Excel spreadsheet where all business plans always work out handsomely. There will be phases in Life when, for long spells of time, things simply won’t add up.  So, being entrepreneurial really means being Resilient. Plain and simple.

And, as Vaani and I have discovered, that Resilience comes from wearing your Life on your sleeve. You are always stronger from facing Life than from fighting it or from running away from it. Fighting Life drains you, makes you weaker and running away from it makes you cower in fear. So, turn around and face Life, deploy Resilience. Talk to someone you trust, keep sharing – honest conversations always help. Or, if you prefer it, seek therapy. Bottomline: Do not keep your emotions bottled up. Do not think of what people will say or how society will judge you. Know that there is no shame in taking ownership for the choices you have made. Be accountable, responsible, reliable and responsive to all your stakeholders – no matter what they think, say or do – at all times. When you are Resilient, when you wear your Life on your sleeve, believe us, a lot of love, understanding and compassion, flows your way. You may not find immediate solutions to problems, but you are able to deal with them better.

“Lesson # 2: Beware of the Big ‘F’ Word”

Second, Vaani and I decided that no matter what, we are not going to allow the Big ‘F’ Word – Failure – to stick to us. Yes, when what you tried to do, with your Vision, with hard work, integrity and passion, has come unstuck, when your business has gone bust, when you have no money, when you owe people money, when you have to live off grants from compassionate people, some will call you a Failure. And you may well start believing them too. Besides, in business stories, when you cannot repay borrowed money, you may even be called a cheat – my own mother has called me so! But if you examine your thoughts carefully you will realize that letting a social definition of who are stick to you is what is pinning/will pin you down. Look within instead – isn’t the fire in you still burning? Stoke that fire. Peel off that label of Failure that society has stuck on you and shred it! Remember: Success and Failure are both imposters, both are impermanent. You came with nothing. And you will go with nothing.  So, don’t get attached to either Success or Failure. Your only focus at the moment, when dealing with a crisis, must be on the fact that you have a problem(s); and that you must get down to solving it – no matter what people say, no matter how long it is going to take, no matter how hard it is to find a solution(s).

“Lesson # 3: Be Useful even if you can’t be/are not immediately Successful”

Third, no matter what happens, how bad the situation gets, you are never worthless. You can always be Useful, even when you are not immediately Successful. In our case, our conversations between us and our collective Resilience has helped us shrug off the bankrupt/Failure labels. We constantly reminded ourselves: “We are not the problem – we are going through a problematic, turbulent, phase!” So, even as we have tried to be Successful to earn money to first survive (and subsequently surely repay our debt), we chose to be Useful. In this time, we had learnt to be non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering; which is, we had learnt to be happy despite our circumstances. So, we decided to go out and share this learning with the world – with all those who are willing to pause and reflect! Being Useful simply means living with a sense of Purpose. Which is why, I wrote my first book Fall Like A Rose Petal. Interestingly, our now bankrupt/defunct Firm, imagequity+, was founded on Aug 1, 1996. Fall Like A Rose Petal launched on our Firm’s Anniversary, 18 years later, on August 1, 2014. And tomorrow is August 1 again – it marks our 23^rd Anniversary as entrepreneurs and 5 years of Fall Like A Rose Petal! It is remarkable, isn’t it, that I am sharing these lessons here on the eve of these special Anniversaries!

Thanks to our choice to be Useful, even when we haven’t yet turned Successful again (in a worldly sense), our Life’s Purpose of “Inspiring ‘Happyness’” found us. That’s how this materially broken Life of ours now thrives with so much meaning. We lead a very purposeful and immersive Life – I blog daily sharing lessons from Life we have learnt, Vaani runs an initiative to promote awareness for eco-friendly lifestyle choices, we both curate and host live, reflective, non-commercial Conversations on Happiness in public spaces in Chennai and we shares lessons on Life and Happiness from lived experiences with managers in the corporate world – that is, whenever we get commercially remunerative work as the happynesswalas!

In summary, the darker it gets in Life, the more we have to let go and flow with Life. Simply, we can’t solve all our problems immediately. Nor can we simply wish them away. So, we must learn to be happy with what is, by being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering! Particularly when going through prolonged crisis-ridden phases we have to have Faith and Patience. From our own experience, Vaani and I can tell you, that while you may not get all that you want, Life is very compassionate – you will always get whatever you need; it will come to you on its own. So, trust the process of Life – that’s Faith; trust that you will emerge stronger, wiser and happy from a crisis, trust that there is a lot of Life through and after a crisis. And until the crisis blows over, be Patient! As I say in my book, “When Life overtakes you, as it often will, let Life take over and you simply Fall Like A Rose Petal”!

Two anniversaries converge today reminding us to fall like a rose petal!

Don’t fight. Don’t resist. Simply, trust the process of Life.

August 1 is special for Vaani and me.

It was on this day, in 1996, that we decided to embrace entrepreneurship. I had come back to India in July that year, from Singapore, after serving as the traveling, globe-trotting, Executive Assistant to dealmaker and tycoon C.Sivasankaran. I was clear I did not want to take up another employment. So, Vaani and I conceptualized and set up our venture, imagequity+, with a Vision for it to be the world’s best consulting Firm from India. We grew very fast in the first six years of starting up and were even ranked as a qualitative global player in our space. But a couple of business decisions we took – while choosing to hold on steadfast to our values – led to our Firm going bankrupt and plunged Vaani and me, and our precious family, into prolonged periods of worklessness and pennilessness.

Vaani and I have spent the longest time, as business partners, as a family, these past 10+ years enduring this bankruptcy.

Interestingly, it was also on this day, in 2014, that my Book, Fall Like A Rose Petal, was launched. When it became evident to us, in end-2007, that we were heading into a phase of uncertainty, financial distress, cluelessness and darkness, I intuitively started writing a journal, sharing our daily experiences and learnings. I addressed each day’s entries to my two children, Aashirwad and Aanchal (who were then 18 and 13), in the hope that when they turned adults, they may benefit from those Life lessons.

You see, in the early years of my career as a journalist, I wanted to be famous – and rich, and powerful – one day and write an autobiography that would showcase to the world ‘how I had done it’! Clearly, I was not just naïve in my thinking then, I was perhaps conceited and struck by hubris as well! And so, let me tell you honestly, I had never quite imagined that my first Book would be all about my spiritual journey – where I share reflections and lessons on happiness, contentment, compassion, love, forgiveness and faith – my evolution, from a rat race runner to the happynesswala  that I am today! Yet, that’s exactly the way it has turned out to be.

So, that’s our big learning, for Vaani and me, from the past decade that have lived through: no matter what you desire or dream or what you plan, Life has a mind of its own; it always happens at its own pace and in its own time. Therefore, don’t fight Life as it happens to you – simply accept it for what it is. If you want your circumstances to change, go work on them. But without expectation. With total detachment. And in complete surrender. Know this: Life will always bring you to where you must arrive. So, trust the process of Life. This is the key to happiness – this trusting is what taught Vaani and me the art of being non-worrying, non-frustrated and non-suffering. This is what has taught us to be happy despite our circumstances. To be sure, our bankruptcy is far from over, but we have learnt to be resilient, patient and happy while living through it.

August 1 is therefore special on two counts. For the first part, it denoted our being successful – when we turned entrepreneurs in 1996; we had broken free from the shackles of employment and, to my then-myopic view of Life, it signified freedom, success and ‘arriving’! And for the second part, with the launch of Fall Like A Rose Petal – interestingly, on the same day that we became entrepreneurs – we had chosen to be useful even when success – which is, fixing our bankruptcy – was elusive.

These past four years, since the launch of my Book, have been eventful surely. But they have also been very, very meaningful. They have been purposeful. Because we still don’t have the means to  travel and promote the Book it may not have made it to bestseller lists. But it surely has connected with all those who have read it. And there’s always someone who is writing in every week to share how our journey and our learnings have made a difference to their Life. Just yesterday, a reader, who had received the Book as a gift from his father, pinged me on Facebook to share this: “Words cannot qualify or quantify the impact you and Vaani have made to my Life through your sharing. I have learnt a very valuable lesson from your Book – postpone everything else, but never postpone your happiness.” Interestingly, at this time, while we don’t have a publisher yet, the Tamizh translation of Fall Like A Rose Petal is ready – it is translated by the veteran writer Charukesi and edited by another legend, V.Ramnarayan; Sivasankari has graciously written the foreword to the translation.

On a day that marks these two anniversaries for us, Vaani and I are soaked in gratitude; we are anchored in equanimity and prayer. We believe that our Life is playing out exactly the way it is meant to be. I don’t know how long this bankruptcy will take to fix and when we will eventually turn zero-debt. But we are eternally grateful for this experience which has taught us what Life truly is, what happiness is and has given our Life a Purpose – which is “Inspiring ‘Happyness’”! So, we continue to share our learnings with audiences who care to pause and reflect – through this Blog, through our signature Talks and curated, non-commercial conversations and our specialized workshops.

And like everything else that has happened in our Life in this past decade, we are sure all our debt will be repaid by us and the Tamizh translation of Fall Like A Rose Petal too will launch in its own time. For our part, we continue to trust the process of Life and well, as the story in my Book goes, we continue to fall like a rose petal! 

 

What others think of you is none of your business!!!

I am often asked how do Vaani and I handle the social implications of being bankrupt.

“Don’t people call you a ‘Failure’ – how do you deal with it?” – well, that’s a question that always comes our way. Surely, we have been called ‘Failed Entrepreneurs’ and ‘Cheats’…in fact, many more debilitating labels have been stuck on us! As long as we worried about those labels and gave them attention, they really weighed us down. But soon we learnt an important Life lesson – “What others think of you is none of your business!!!”. So, we simply peeled off the labels in our mind, trashed them, and moved on.

We have realized that when you are sure of your values, you have integrity of Purpose, when you stay true to yourself and own the outcome of your actions, no one, nor what they say, can then pin you down!

AVIS delivering his signature Fall Like A Rose Petal Talk

This picture was taken at a recent “Fall Like A Rose Petal” Talk where I am sharing this learning with a bunch of young engineering students. I am telling them that the Big ‘F’ word to be wary of is “Failure”…I shared with them that both “Success” and “Failure” are mere imposters, they are labels that society tries to stick on you. As long as you let neither label stick, you will be happy and at peace with yourself!

Read more here and look up my Book “Fall Like A Rose Petal” on Amazon/Flipkart.

Listen to your inner voice, always go with ‘Inge Yenna Solluthu…’!

Neither insecurity nor pleasing others can make you happy!

A senior manager at a large IT company came up to us over the weekend faced with a classic conundrum. He wants to take a plunge as an entrepreneur – he has been incubating a start-up parallely for a couple of years now. He has an offer from an entrepreneur-friend who needs his skill-sets and is open to allowing him to invest time in his start-up too. Meanwhile, a new boss at the IT company he works with has appraised him poorly and wants him to give a two-year commitment to a new project that he will have to lead. The manager told us: “I am very miffed with the way my company is treating me. I have been true to them but they have treated me so shabbily. I am confused. Should I take the entrepreneurial plunge? Should I swallow my dignity and continue protecting my income? Should I join my friend’s company? I need some perspective, AVIS and Vaani…please help!”

Of course, we offered this manager our perspective. But let me share with you our approach to such dilemmas – something that is applicable in all contexts, not just in professional or career-related choices. First, let us understand that in almost all cases, there is no dilemma. We are all pretty intelligent to know what to do in every situation. We invite confusion into our lives only when we feed our insecurities and when we try to please others. Simple.

Gautham Vasudev Menon’s Vinnaithandi Varuvaya (VTV) had a great character Ganesh who would always egg the protagonist Simbu to decide only basis what his heart told him to do. “Inge Yenna Solluthu, Jessie, Jessie-nu Sollutha?” was the famous dialogue. Meaning, “What does your heart say? Does it say ‘Jessie, Jessie’…(then follow your heart, go after her!)”. Quite similarly, for all of us, our inner voice has already spoken. The metaphorical Jessie has been pointed to. But we brush that voice aside and instead look at what-if scenarios feeding our insecurities. And we look at people around us and try to please them citing ‘what-will-they-say’ excuses. Neither insecurity nor pleasing others can make you happy. You are happy only when you are doing what you love doing. Listening to your inner voice alone can make you happy.

Now coming back to the manager’s story, his inner voice wants him to take the entrepreneurial plunge. But his insecurity and his desire to placate, or prove a point to, his employer are causing his confusion. So much so that he’s refusing to see the opportunity of his entrepreneur-friend’s offer. All he needs to do is evaluate his options basis three questions: 1. Will I be happy as an entrepreneur? 2. Can I do justice to my job and my dream project while working for my friend? 3. Is there another source of income to hold the family afloat should the new job fall through for any reason? If the answer to all three questions is ‘yes’, well, he knows what to do!

For you too, decision-making can be that simple whenever you start with asking what will make you happy. Of course not all decisions will get you what you aim for or want. But then Life is not about winning or losing, it is not about whether your decisions were right or wrong, it is only about lived experiences basis decisions made singularly on parameters relating to your happiness! Remember: it is not only what happiness is, it is also what happiness does. Happiness offers phenomenal clarity. It helps you realize that with each moment that you spend postponing happiness, you have not just one moment less to live, you have wasted one more moment being unhappy! In an unpredictable and inscrutable Life, what will matter in the end is, not who you pleased or what you fought, but how happily you lived despite your circumstances!

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Sometimes it is best not to get what you want in Life

Life is bizarre and inscrutable. If you can’t make sense of it, just go wherever Life is taking you!

Often, when you review the reasons why you did not get what you wanted, you will end up finding what is truly ordained for you. The path you choose may not always be available to you. But a closed door or a dead end will, always, often miraculously, open up a whole new path for you. You may take that road reluctantly to arrive at an unknown place, only to discover that you really, truly belong there!

This is counter-intuitive to the popular, world conditioning that we have all received. On the one hand, you are encouraged to set a Vision for yourself, have goals and diligently pursue them. And on the other, you are now being told that despite what you have planned, Life will take you on its own course! Well, it may seem incredible, but it is the way it is. It is so simple and easy to understand. You can only make a Life out of what happens to you __ irrespective of what you planned or wanted. That’s really how you learn to be happy despite the circumstances.

20 years ago, in 1996, after three successive disastrous employment stints, I presented myself in the office of a high-profile recruiter in Chennai. He subsequently built his company up well and sold it to a global recruitment firm. He then joined politics and was elected from a constituency in Chennai in the recent Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. But back then, the recruiter was a big name, and his firm was a much talked-about start-up. I had known him through my years as a business journalist. So, I sought his help in getting me a good, well-paying, purposeful corporate job. He spent three hours speaking with me and assured me of a quick turnaround. Post that meeting, over the next three months, I must have called him a few dozen times. E-mail was not so big then. So, I had to follow up only via phone. He neither answered my calls on his direct number nor did he call me back, although his secretary kept promising me he would. It was so strange and so frustrating. I remember agonizing then: at least he could tell me why he was not successful in pushing my case with employers; or, was he even trying?

Frustrated, and perhaps also driven by the fact that I had been ‘rejected’, I resolved that I should go on to be an employer. And not be an employee anymore. One fine day, in August 1996, I went ahead and set up a tiny consulting firm with my wife! We were successful financially in our early years. But by the end of our first decade in business, we were staring at a big, dark, black hole of accumulated losses and an unimaginable pile of debt. Eventually, as is public knowledge now (‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’; Westland) we went bankrupt and, as I write this, continue to be in that state.

Initially, I hated where we had ended up finding ourselves: presiding over the debris of a debt-laden, problem-ridden Firm. I used to hate that feeling__of guilt, ignominy, hopelessness, fear and resentment__ which would gnaw at me from within in each waking moment. But now, after all these years, when I look back, I find that without the rejection I faced in the job market, I may not have embraced entrepreneurship and without having failed at entrepreneurship, I may never have understood what Life is, what intelligent living is and understood what happiness is and what contentment is as I do now!

When I introspect, I am grateful for the experiences I have been through that have transformed me from being an angry, foul-mouthed, obsessive, possessive, egotist to being a simple, accepting, mindful voyager through Life. My learnings from the path that I did not choose, but which unfolded itself in front of me as I walked, have brought me to, I earnestly believe, my Life’s Purpose: to awaken people to happiness despite their circumstances! I am reminded of what John Bunyan, a 17th Century English writer and preacher, had to say: “Although I have been through all that I have, I do not regret the many hardships I met, because it was they who brought me to the place I wished to reach.”

So celebrate Life’s inscrutability. Don’t grieve, don’t mourn what you wanted and did not get. It is Life’s job, having created you, to take care of you. And your job is to live the Life that you have – fully, happily!

"Bahut Mazaa Ayega!"

Don’t look for rewards and recognition in Life! In the end, they don’t matter. What will matter is this: did you live the Life you were given – fully, usefully, purposefully, happily?

400+ wannabe entrepreneurs: “The adventure is the reward!”

Yesterday, I was addressing an audience of over 400 students, from different academic streams, on ‘The Spirit of Entrepreneurship’. They were an amazing audience. Full of Life! Raring to go!! Enthusiastic!!! My message to them was that entrepreneurship is not what entrepreneurs bring to the table. Entrepreneurship is what makes entrepreneurs! I said Life, at best, is a big gamble. And both success and failure are mere labels, imposters as the Bhagavad Gita says! So, go have fun, enjoy the ride, because, I said, the adventure is the reward!

Indeed. We must all learn to have fun in Life, enjoying it every moment! Because the challenges that Life throws at us, and which we invariably overcome and conquer, in retrospect are indeed laughable! In school, when I couldn’t get Math right, I would often feel defeated. Now, when I look back, I joke about it! Similarly, when I was out of work, 21 years ago, because my employer shut shop, I thought I had lost in Life. But when I review that period, I smile appreciatively because what I thought was lost really was a new opportunity gained__because I wouldn’t be where I am today without that loss!

In the iconic Bollywood movie “Sholay”, the ferocious Gabbar Singh, often says, in a wicked drawl, “Bahut Mazaa Ayega!”, meaning “It will be so much fun!”. Just repeating this line in the same tone to yourself whenever confronted with a challenge is a great way to remind yourself that Life’s, after all, a big game, a gamble, if you like! But you must keep playing it, as long as there is Life, no matter what! As I left the auditorium after my Talk yesterday, yet another student there wanted my autograph. I wrote: “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game of Life. Trust me, “Bahut Mazaa Ayega!””