Business should not be "Business as usual"

The thought of this post came to me while i  was lying under partial anesthesia on the surgery table of St Philomena's hospital on the 15th of September 2014. I did not have sense of the lower portion of my body. Lying half naked, my legs tied up like a pregnant woman about to deliver, I was waiting for the surgeon to cut out some pus in my ano-rectum area and cut open some part of the tissue so that a fissure there could heal properly. In medical terms the surgery was called "Lateral sphincterotomy". It was a small surgery nevertheless painful.  This was the culmination of bad and stressful life for more than a year.  While i could not have directly cut down the stress levels, i could have been more disciplined in life. 

This was my first encounter with the operation theater. I was told that the this surgery is quite common and its not a cause of worry. Surgery apart, it is the lifestyle which caused my hapless condition. 

For over an year, i am leading a pretty undisciplined life. Very bad food habits, no exercise, plenty of driving, bad sleep habits, pollution and stress both in family and work has taken a very huge toll on my health and hobbies. Health and work obviously has suffered a great deal. But for no plausible reason, i have stopped photography (After publishing my collection early this year), i have not done any travel for pleasure or holiday, my passion for academics has come down, my orthodoxy in religion has almost vanished,  i have stopped following kannada theater so on and so forth. 

The reason for all the above is indiscipline in life and lack of will power. No doubt there has been a sea change in life in the last two years. I am no longer at my will to do all the silly adventures. I have a wife and a one year old who are dependent on me. They take most of my time. 

Not everything is in my control as well. I have lost many dear ones in the last 15 months. My mother and my always witty, selfless and always helpful doctor cousin left me in a span of 5 weeks. My uncle who was like a father figure for me after my father's demise left me just a couple of days after naming his grandson (My son) as "Sri Krishna" in the first week of August this year. 

Nonetheless, being disciplined even amidst the worst onslaught is what makes a man successful. One can never have control over the external factors but one should have determination to stick to his game plan and work towards a goal. Unfortunately i have failed in the latter two so far. 

Running a business is not "So cool" thing to do. Being on your own requires lot of discipline and willpower. Many things will be pulling you in many directions. But staying focussed is the key. 

 "You are so lucky", " Oh its cool to be working from home". These are the typical reactions i get from many people who i meet. They envy me because i work mostly from home. Rather i work at home!!.. 

While it is really good to be working from home, it has its own inherent repercussions. An entrepreneur needs to be very disciplined at work. Working from home many times may become "Working for Home". Household chores are a never ending task. There will be something or the other every day. When we heed too much for the household work, business obviously takes a back seat.
Entrepreneurs are normally creative people . But sometimes, they use the creativity to justify inaction and lethargy since there is no reporting manager on top of him.

One big reason for my bad health over the last one year has been my lifestyle. I tend to do work at odd timings. I haven't taken care of my diet. I heed too much for domestic chores and concentrate too little on professional deadlines and plans. Creativity has taken a back seat since i am more involved in household work.

Kids are awesome. They really are. My one year old son is super cute and super naughty. I can play with him all day and all night. But playing all day also means losing all day of business. Since i work from home, my son always wants to come to me while i am working. He does not like when i ignore him. I cannot go out of the house(office) when he is awake.

"Business" for entrepreneurs is not "Business as usual". Entrepreneurs are normally creative and enthusiastic people. They always want to do new things and experiment. The key driver for their creativity is the discipline. Once the discipline is gone in life, creativity goes down and business suffers. For sustenance, the business becomes business as usual.

Out of my experience of running a very small company pretty successfully for sometime which earned me a lot of social capital and , also failing quite badly in the last 12 to 14 months, i would like to pen down a few guidelines for myself and for other people going through a similar phase of life.

• Having discipline in work is very important. To be more precise, one needs to have a very clear distinction between professional and personal life. There must not be any overlap in time allotted for each respectively.
• If possible, have a separate office however small it is. But the office must be neat.
• Keep the family away from business and office. Resist the temptation of playing with kids at office hours. 
• Have a good routine. Start up entrepreneurs have a lot of travel to do. But one must keep in mind that health suffers during travel. One must have control over eating outside food. Fast food can kill you faster. 
• Starting the work early helps leaps and bounds. I do not know if it is by design of luck, but most of the project meetings and negotiations that i have had in the early hours in the morning have invariably clicked. 
• Another important observation is that whenever i have been late for the meeting, those projects have not clicked. So a priceless lesson is to be on time for every meeting, be it with clients or with subordinates. 
• Stress and restlessness are the biggest enemies for entrepreneurs. One must find out a way of overcoming it. One nice way which has started working for me is music. Few weeks back i started learning Mridangam, something i wanted to do for many years now. I am very bad at it right now. But learning something new , particularly music which is both an art and science has been a very refreshing experience. 
• Most importantly life for an entrepreneur should never become "Business as usual". It is the most dangerous thing that could happen which will kill his creativity. One must keep on experimenting, creating, innovating and enjoy his or her evolution. 

I am completely aware that many things are easier said than done. I am also trying to incorporate many of the above into my life.

This post is my acknowledgement to my indiscipline, weak determination and very bad health, and my resolve to reverse it.  I wrote the above post to reinvent myself and renew many of my interests and passions.