pick a fight

There are 2 posts tagged pick a fight.

Three Years in Bangalore – The joy, pain and where it leads?

18 Oct 2008, that was the day I landed in this beautiful garden city Bangalore as a 25 year old full with enthusiasm and energy to make it big. Now, three years hence, I can say it is exactly the same state I found myself in. Buzzing with energy, pumping in 14-16 hour days and excited about a lot of ideas sprouting in my head. Now I won’t say that it has been all rosy in these last three years, as there was a brief period of being lost, where I hardly was able to put in 6 hours a day, and I was either angry, frustrated, irritated or just tired all day along. But I am glad that this phase happened, and gladder that it is over now 🙂

SaleRaja – The Joy and Pains of Entrepreneurship

The first year in Bangalore was full of experiencing what entrepreneurship is all about. There were good days, and there were not so good days. Technical discussions, night long marathon coding sessions, sales calls, and a lot of manual and boring repetitive tasks used to fill up my day. The Bangalore weather was the perfect catalyst for all this. Going to events, meeting the founders of other startups, partnering with a lots of people for different tasks and lots of brainstorming sessions made this period one of the most memorable of my life. I started SaleRaja.com as I felt working with InfoEdge that it was not too difficult to earn money ‘for ourselves‘. SaleRaja taught me it was not so easy either 😉 Nothing could be more humbling than that, and the lessons from SaleRaja makes me what I am today. 15 months in Bangalore, and I had to make one of my toughest decisions to let go of SaleRaja, which might also be one of the wisest. For the whole SaleRaja journey, I can say that I started SaleRaja for earning money and getting rich. It didn’t make me any richer (in financial terms) but it ended my hunger for money and pushed me towards a journey for more meaningful things, and that was a big breakthrough.

New city, New games

New city, New games

Exploring New Territories

Once the burden of SaleRaja was no more, I felt really free and light compared to the heavy feeling of burden which I felt earlier. I started meeting a lot of people from the startup ecosystem in Bangalore, also had time to catch with a lot of friends in Bangalore whom I rarely met during the times of SaleRaja. I got interested in looking for new ideas for business, and saw a few very interesting ideas by entrepreneurs. I joined Yahoo during this time, and apart from work, started volunteering to teach school kids as part of a Yahoo! initiative. This step was path breaking as it helped me discover a new side of myself and opened up a lot of new doors. Not to forget are the many long rides I did on my bike which literally meant exploring new territories.

The Joy of Starting New Initiatives

Around the end of 2010, I decided it was time to do something (again). Well, once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. I love starting new initiatives, and this time I decided to do something non-commercial, and something which was not related to internet and coding in any way. I took up a waste management initiative, organized an anti-corruption walk, and later started Pick a Fight. This journey, which still continues, got me in contact with some amazing people from the non-technical world, and it was an eye opening and view expanding experience.

Every city has its own language, customs and festivals

Every city has its own language, customs and festivals

The Future – I can sense some change soon

It has been almost two years since I gave up on SaleRaja, and I am really eager to get back to the game again. Although I am involved in the initiatives mentioned above, I am always excited by new business opportunities. In a way I can feel the winds of change coming towards me soon. I am not sure how long before I start something again, or whether I will start myself or join an already existing startup, or what idea it would be? But I am very sure that I am ready for it again now based on my learnings in the last two years. But this time I will not hurry up into it like last time (not repeating the mistakes) and do proper due diligence before jumping again (making new mistakes).

Volunteering, What It Can Do For You?

Volunteering has a meaningful impact on your community. It contributes to the overall social and economic health of the community, as people are engaged positively into contributing for disadvantaged sections of society. It could range from visiting the sick, planting a tree or advocating for human rights. But apart from the benefits to the society, we most often miss the benefits it can have for the person who is volunteering. Here are some ways how volunteering can benefit you –

Learn new Skills
Volunteering can help us learn more skills and makes us aware of our hidden skills. We can help organize a fundraising event, do an awareness event, or teach students in a school. By doing this we can improve our goal setting, planning or budgeting skills. It also helps us to improve our decision making skills and contribute to personal change by affecting our beliefs about day to day behavior of people. If you always had a hobby and you wanted to know if you should pursue it, you can volunteer with your skills to see for yourself whether you enjoy doing it or not, or where you stand in that skill. For example, taking initiatives like ‘No Waste‘ and ‘Dandi March‘ has certainly made a huge difference to my people management and leadership skills.

Volunteer for Yourself

Volunteer for Yourself

Sense of Fulfillment
When we volunteer, we give our time and skills generously by choice. There is no anxiety and stress as we have made the decision all by ourself. Therefore, volunteering gives us the highest level of accomplishment and a sense of fulfillment. Whenever I have helped others, I have always felt joy and I think it is the same with all human beings. Even after working on something physically stressful while volunteering, people always feel stress-free, relaxed and more alive after doing it. And irrespective of the outcome, the knowledge of contributing to a good cause is always rewarding.

Wider Perspective
In our busy day to day lives, volunteering can help us create some stability in our lives. The confidence and experience gained from volunteering can be helpful in seeing workplace issues in a different perspective. We discover new traits of our personality and can reach for new levels of performance at the workplace too. For me, meeting people from different age groups and different professions has given me the ability to put my world in perspective with so much other stuff happening which I was totally unaware of earlier. It has also helped me improve my social and interpersonal skills. Volunteering can help anybody get out of the ‘rat race’ and create a balance in their lives.

Connecting with others
When you volunteer, you will meet new people from different walks and segments of the society. These contacts can be valuable in establishing business contacts or for seeking employment in the future. Meeting people and making new friends increase the feeling of relatedness with the community, and is rewarding intrinsically. People and societies depend on each other for survival but commercialism and consumerism have seen people getting more and more individualistic. What better way to connect and give something back to your community than volunteering.

Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something

Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something

“A candle loses nothing by lighting another” is a popular quote by James Keller. We can not give something (out of free will) without getting something in return. When we give our time and skills to another, it is like lighting a candle. We don’t lose anything, but gain more light (knowledge). Volunteering always leaves us richer in spirit, happiness, skills and takes away your problems, stress and anxiety. If you have not spend time volunteering till now, do so. It is certainly one of the things you must experience sooner than later. For volunteering opportunities, see this initiative (Pick A Fight) I am taking with a few of my friends.