We spend a lot of time being amazed and impressed by people we’ve never met. Somebody who’s got a big car, a big job, a big pay, whatever..and we try to be like them in every way possible. The strong desire to be your own boss, have your own book out there in the market and all kinds of jazz with your name attached to it.

Well I tried lots of different things over the years, trying desperately to free my career out of the claws of “just another job.” I’ve worked in a banking BPO, was an insurance sales man, was an investment banker and even *cough* started my own company.

One fine day after a hard days work (yeah right!), after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sitting on my PC,at home, feeling a bit burned out by work, love and life in general,I opened an old folder, which had all my work from my freelance days. And then it hit me…it hit me like a bolt of lighting. It was then that I realised that “What the F*** am i doing?” I decided that it was time the Real me came out. I was tired of the way my life was going, knowing that you have a gift and not using it is the biggest sin of them all. So..i quit my job as an Investment banker.

I didn’t really need a reason. I just did it because it was there, because it amused me in a kind of random, arbitrary way.

Of course it was stupid. Of course it was a “you did not think this through” moment. Of course it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Of course it was a complete and utter waste of time and filled my mind with complete chaos. But in retrospect, it was this built-in futility that gave it its edge. Because it was the exact opposite of all the “Big Plans” my peers and I were used to making. It was so liberating not to have to be thinking about all that, for a change.

It was so liberating to be doing something that didn’t have to impress anybody, for a change.

It was so liberating to have something that belonged just to me and no one else, for a change.

It was so liberating to feel complete sovereignty, for a change. To feel complete freedom, for a change.

And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world started paying attention.

The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.

That’s what the freelancing business taught me.

god…im feeling so sick right about now…come to think of It, i haven’t been sick with fever for over 3 years now…my superman streak has come to an end.. sigh.

Anyway…i took a bold step last night…need to see how it turns out.. i’m gonna spend the next few days working out on JID. I don’t even know if it will work out..lets lets hold on and wait. {fingers crossed} - damn they don’t have a smiley for that

This is a welcome….i got up at 6 this morning and got some great news when i checked my mail…auto approvals!! Man thats just dandy! I love it!

This just keeps getting better and better. I’m pretty convinced that this is the way to go. Based on yesterday’s verbal communication with the man. That just proves my point further doesn’t it? Screw this…i’m sick and tired of proving that I have to do shit to stay afloat. Yes. I am that damn good.

From now on this is a solo act. I don’t care what you want. I don’t give a rats ass if you think I’m mean, I got my own back to protect, I’ve got my own things to deal with. I don’t need you telling me that I owe it to ya.

To quote Eminem from 8mile:

F**k the beat i go acapella
F**k a Papa Doc, fuck a clock, fuck a trailer, fuck everybody
F**k y’all if you doubt me
I’m a piece of fucking trash, i say it proudly
And fuck this battle
I don’t wanna win
I’m outty
Here tell these people sumin they don’t know about me

It’s been 10 friggin’ years since I first started out. wow! A whole decade has passed my by. Probably the best decade that i’ll ever have..or remember. If there’s one thing I’ve learn’t in this decade is that no matter what you do, there will always be things that are in your control and things that are not in your control. One of those things is your effort.

I had to kick myself in the ass and recommit to getting up early, staying up late and consuming everything I possibly could to get an edge. I had to commit to making the effort to be as productive as I possibly could. It meant making sure that every hour of the day that I could contact a customer was selling time and when customers were sleeping, I was doing things that prepared me to make more sales and to make my company better.

And finally, I had to make sure I wasn’t lying to myself about how hard I was working. It would have been easy to judge effort by how many hours a day passed by while I was at work. That’s the worst way to measure effort. Effort is measured by setting goals and getting results. What did i need to do to close this account. What did I need to do to win this segment of business. What did i need to do to understand this technology or that business better than anyone. What did I need to do to find an edge. Where does that edge come from and how was I going to get there.

The one thing in our business lives is effort. Either you make the commitment to get results or your don’t.

cheers

Man, this hosting service is so unreliable… the site has just been up over the last few days and I’ve already had 2 outages; which were fixed only once I contacted them.  What a bunch of BS. Damn! I don’t wanna move…i’ve just settled in.

Does everyone feel like this or is it just ultra lazy people like me. Sigh…life goes on.

Let me lay it out straight for you. If you are here for useful information or even remotely useful information, that might; oh I don’t know; change your life, or let you know what to do in case you are bitten by a fire ant or your eyeball is bleeding…then this ain’t the place for ya.

This is my personal corner of the world and I’ll talk about anything I please. Anything from what happens when stupid people have sex to why we can’t see pluto with the naked eye. If you find this remotely interesting or even fascinating then stick around. I might just make you even more stupid than you look.

Let’s face facts here, the Xbox 360 in terms of sheer technology was a little….yes a little behind the PlayStation 3.
Now looking back about what happened in 2007, which was a great year by
the way for the 360, I can’t help imagine what happens next? read more: http://thegamedruid.com/2008/01/will-xbox-360-survive-2008.html

Tags: gaming | Console | happens | opinion | platform | SURVIVE | terms | XBOX

I learned a lot from one of my earlier managers, from my previous work place, Varun Pancholi when he was one of the managers for a major insurance company. He told me something during the last few days of my tenure then, which opened my eyes. I forget the exact conversation, but we were talking about cricket, and I asked him why players don’t typically do a self evaluation and why do they have cameras and stuff helping them out. What he said was that “THe worse evaluator of talent is a player trying to evaluate himself.”

The same applies to business people and particularly to entrepreneurs and wana be entrepreneurs. We tend to be less than honest with ourselves about our strengths and weaknesses.

 I have been just as bad at this as anyone, particularly when I was getting started in the business world. For those of us who dream of starting and running a business, we know that we have to have a level of confidence in our own abilities. We don’t want to believe that there are things we can’t do. We want to believe that if we try hard enough, work long enough, and get a little lucky, that the sky is the limit. The problem is that we let our confidence cloud our judgments of what we truly know about ourselves.

I’m one of the least organized people I know. When I was 20 years old, sleeping on the desk and starting Sabretooth Studios, no assistant and no organization. I was a procrastinator. Accounting was an old floppy case of receipts. I was a mess.

 But I lied to myself and said that I could deal with it. That I would make time to get it all figured out and organized. That if I only set my mind to it, I could be a detail person. I could stop procrastinating. It doesn’t work that way.

 I did the things I was good at. I could sell. I could ideate, so I did, I could design, so I did. I could integrate PCs. I could set up systems from scratch. And I did. My business grew. But it also grew out of control. Setting up a machine or a software program or a design without any clear path ahead is a disaster waiting to happen. And they did. Not to the point where it killed my business, but to the point where I spent far too much time fixing things rather than selling new deals.

Fortunately, one of my best customers at the time was interested in becoming a partner in my business. Suhail ran a company called Intellimedia Technologies. I had worked there earlier, much before my Sabretooth days. He was not only smart and a great designer, but he was the most anal, detail oriented person I had ever met in my life. The perfect partner for me.

Our partnership wasn’t always easy. We had more than our shares of knock down drag out fights. He of course would want everything done with precision and if lack of perfection was an option, he didn’t want to do it. I of course was the exact opposite. I was the GO FOR IT guy. We were perfect partners. We knew and trusted the skills of the other and although many might not think yelling was the best way to work things out, we managed.

It all came down to choice. I had the choice between lying to myself and pretending that I could turn on a switch and become a details person, or accepting the fact that I’m not, and partnering with someone who is. Continuing to lie meant I would probably lose my business.

Of course, 2 years later, I sold off the business and got into a corporate career and so on. But the lesson I’ve learnt is this: Every entrepreneur faces comparable choices. Each of us has to face the reality of who we are and what we are.

What choice will you make?