Among our batchmates, probably I was the first person who took the risk to explore the avenue of traditional business. But not always it’s easy to walk on the path less traveled. Educated entrepreneurs must have the guts to walk away from the apparently secured well-paid jobs and stay on that out-track at least as long as success shows its first sign. Things are not that easy.

Now I’m a derailed engineer. I started with my coaching center, later entered the stock market taking some calculated risk (God bless the investors including me! Your friend says, money is nothing? Ok fine, tell him to invest in the share market.) My succession of such attempts ended in establishing my own gift business branding by the name DOVANA. I owned 2 shops and I’d always dreamt of being a business magnet extending my domain over some other sister concerns as well till the date my dream transformed meeting newer impulses. (Lucky I’m as I did never have to regret my new impulses.) Yes, I was planning to kill my brainchild.

To become successful you’ve to start young. It’s even more important to fail young if you really want to fail in any of your attempts. To fail successfully is an art. Now I feel, sometimes failures are good and life-saving. I always found myself in a position that I hardly seemed very comfortable with. When I saw my friends already having crossed a long way, I felt just helpless. Gradually they were becoming the top professionals in their respective sectors.

If you’re not accustomed to being considered ‘Nobody’ by others since your childhood, it’s difficult to see yourself ‘Nobody’ even for a short time. I strongly felt only walking or running at least to catch them was not enough, I must take a flying leap! I was struggling to win, but fighting with small people was constantly giving me a hollow inferior feeling. I was out there alone on my own island, and I felt like I was disengaged . . . . . . .

Even if you win by fighting with small people it gives you a feeling that you’re the kind of them, just a mediocre talent. Success in business is an extremely selfish game. Maybe, you’re thinking, ‘Huh! I’m already much selfish,’ but to have won more than others you would have needed to be more selfish than you really are. . . . . . . . . I always talked to my engineer batchmates (I belong to ’02 batch) and used to insist we better start a software business. I found only a few really serious in words, fewer in action. The easiest way to start anything is just to start it. Everyone around me wanted to start a journey of a thousand miles; no one was willing to put even the first step.

I know it’s true not always taking risks is easy especially when you’ve been brought up in a surrounding full of millions of NO. How easy it is to say NO to an attempt! Not always life sounds so easy to stay indifferent to all the opportunity costs and be connected with your dream when it belongs to elsewhere contrary to common expectation. You start feeling that maybe you’re going to be a just nobody for whom just nothing is waiting. It’s horrible to be just a NOBODY to others. All the time you’re thinking, planning, hoping about your dream and at the same time wondering what would happen if you find yourself in the wrong place when it’s too late.

One thing I can tell you: Never it’s too late to realize it’s already getting late. Life didn’t come to us with a user-manual. So, it’s our right to use and to abuse it! I can tell you for sure that playing with life is a wonderful game, but you must carefully make sure that it remains wonderful at the end of the day. Winners stand-alone only because only a few can really win.

Living unremembered, unrecognized can give you the worst feeling, I can say. Not always life is so smooth as to stay complacent with, ‘I think, therefore I’m’ principle, life makes you feel the urge to start believing, ‘Others think, therefore I’m.’ Identity is more important than existence. Now I believe, deciding what you really want matters. It took me almost 2 decades to decide what I really want. When I’d decided finally, it took me only a few months to get what I really want. Whatever you do, job or business or anything else, you must work not only hard but also smartly to become successful enough to smile and not to be embarrassed seeing others smile at your previous ‘sweet failures’.

Failures are never meant to be sweet. It’s your success that makes them sweet. Sometimes your best role model is only YOU in a better state you could be. Not always success is being anyone else you dream of being, rather being a new YOU better than previous YOU or not degrading your better YOU if you already are. Hardly, things not worth-challenging are worth-getting. Success is all about earning not deserving. The easiest way to make people admit you deserve something is only to earn it. Fact is, your success is what you think you earn, your failure is what others think you deserve. . . . .

Success. It’s just living without sighs. It’s just dancing in the manner you want and making people think you dance well even if you don’t. It’s making your style others’ favorite brand even if it’s foolish. It’s sometimes making people laugh listening to your even worst jokes. It’s making others hear you even when you don’t speak. It’s taking the opportunity to tell others that meeting your previous millionth failure was essential, anyway.

It’s making your failures worth-mentioning by you or by others. It’s just what it’s, not the opposite of failure as often popularly told and wrongly believed. Throughout my life, I’ve followed a simple technique. I always have the highest respect for any peak I’m trying to reach and I make the successful persons my heroes. It gives me a great drive! Really! Even a child wants to become the hero he dreams of. It’s easy to work for something when you really admire, in any job, in any business. Your business is like your child. You cannot expect your child to be a complete man overnight. Similarly, you cannot expect your business boom before you become used to the bitter reactions from the people around you. People have a natural talent for undermining your attempts to which they are not familiar with or don’t feel comfortable about. There are some people who can never appreciate anything. So, it’s foolish to judge yourself by what they say. Kind words are healthier than chicken soup. Have a bowl of healthy soup—-served (if you’re lucky enough) or self-served (if you want to make your own luck).

Get busy living. I’ve always found this: learned free, lost paid. So, invest before you earn. Get inspiration from people who never stop before they cross the miles to go before they sleep. Quitters are never winners. Que sera, sera—Whatever will be, will be. Things are that they’re, things will be that they’ll be. If you quit, only you quit. Some won’t quit and will reach a peak. The easiest way to finish something is to start it. Once you start, you’re surely on the way to the end. If you finish before it finishes, you must search for another way. Not always a new way is better rather sometimes it brings newer pains. If you still don’t know what to do, ask your heart.

Do what you love, love what you do. Your heart strangely somehow knows better than you. Never ask a blind man to help you cross the road because he is also trying or has failed to cross it. If you can’t see ask someone who has already seen. Better to live 1 minute with a wise man than to stay 1 hundred years with an idiot. First, decide, deserve and then desire. These 3 D’s can give you what you and others want from your life. Not always life is easy, but it’s still worth living. Tough time doesn’t last long for the tough men. Be that tough. Don’t tell the world what you can do, let the world tell it for you. Your actions speak much louder than your words.

Don’t challenge others, challenge yourself because at the end of the day what all you’re left with, is only yourself. It’s never too late, rather being late is good as you’ve already paid the price for mistakes that others haven’t yet. Know what to do, learn how to do it and JUST DO IT! Be that tough guy for whom time waits as he has refused to shape his life with time, by time, for time. Remember, only your results are rewarded, not your efforts. This is the way the world accepts or rejects you.

Never take anything for granted, even your failure.

Never call it a day until & unless the day ends.

Only your results are rewarded, not your efforts.

Really perform when you’re performing.

Only your performance performs, not my prayers or curses.

Sometimes your luck matters much more than your performance.

Excuses are of no use. If you win, you need not show them. If you lose, you should not show them.

The game is always ON. So . . . . . . . JUST PLAY! Good luck!