Idealism Vs Oppurtunism

Integrity, honesty, people skills, the team, leadership, attitude, creativity, lateral thinking, identifying problems and offering solution, willingness to sacrifice a whole lot of things - are all the ingredients that goes behind building an entrepreneur, or more meaningfully the enterprise which outlives the former and hence of much more importance. I’m prepared to do all of it, I want to be an entrepreneur – I’m going to build a team, develop bleeding edge technology, I’m not lured by social life or money, I know being an entrepreneur is hard, unromantic, full of pressure, I have elite goals and I’m going to chase them come what may.

Was what I almost said when my turn came answering to the question – why you want to be an entrepreneur, as we the then Uni students sitting around the first business entrepreneur we met, who gave a pitiful smile at our ignorance! He was convinced that we were those typical students – full of book knowledge, capable of defining things in immaculate vocabulary, full of idealist and noble thoughts – but totally void of real life experience and world knowledge. He then said – I’m an entrepreneur, running a profitable software company – if tomorrow selling peanuts in Bangalore give me a little more money than selling software, I’d do that!

Most of the students reading this post would think the same way I thought on that day – when this entrepreneur advised me to be opportunistic and not to have any solid ideals/goals. He was right – I strongly buy the point of view of this gentleman in his mid-50s who took 30 years doing research in Uni to realize he’s ready to start a company! This gestation varies with people, their lifestyle, experiences, professional and social circle – the point being, it’s simply too juvenile to have an idealistic scenario in mind and keep researching and talking about it. I’d prefer to be more of a realist and opportunist – maximize what the world has to offer to me to understand it better and then once I feel I’m ready – think about what I have to offer to the world.

What makes me so confident to say most of us are not even half ready to even “think” big? I made a blindfolded decision to be an opportunist; saw what the world has to offer – it made me increasingly aware how little I know, how stupid I was being such an idealist, browsing books, refining thoughts, speaking better – yet doing nothing – reality was I wasn’t capable/ready to do anything; but the idealist in me never accepted this truth.

I want to build a software that even the farmers can use, I’m building a tool that’s gonna help NGOs work better, I’m writing a business plan, I want to offer cheap medical solutions for the poor – all noble ideas, great ambitions. Sorry to sound depressing – but you’d never do any of those successfully coz none of you know what it is like being in a NGO or a farmer. One has to be in the system to do something for the system – to me it makes more sense to go out there and do stuff, than just talking idealistic scenarios.

I’ve stopped dreaming, I’ve stopped refining my thoughts, I’ve stopped reading books, I’ve stopped planning, I’ve stopped setting 5yr/10yr plans, I’ve stopped brainstorming, I’ve stopped being out of the box, I’ve stopped being any change agent…

I’ve started backpacking more seeing a lot of world, I’ve started to socialize more, I’ve started doing things which has got nothing to do with my competency or interests on my days off (like re-furbishing power boats, cooking, fishing, wood cutting, deep sea diving, spending time with my car – cleaning, replacing components etc.), I’ve started playing Texas Poker, Coinage, Golf, I’ve started clubbing lots, meeting new people…

Well it doesn’t look cool to an idealist student reader I’m sure – but I feel like “doing” things and increasing my world knowledge and street smartness; when I would have actually attended more meetings, talked more about idealist scenarios and return back home and slept doing nothing, if I was still an idealist.

No closed room discussions
No coffee bar meetings, minutes, follow-ups, long emails
No boring long lectures, debates
No documents after documents

Travel travel travel
Grab any opportunity that lets you closest to real life
Don’t be so focused at this age – keep turning around
Keep changing – it’s good to be slightly less scrupulous
Wait for the day you’re ready and strike it big!

Cheers mate ;-)