He is not a Dracula!

I am neither an entrepreneur nor do I want to become one (in the near future at least). I am happy with my 9 to 5 job because 1) I love the work that I do and 2) it gives me the flexibility to do what I want in my free time. True, I won’t be able to own that dream villa ever but it’s also true that I have safe guarded myself from a lot of risks which as an entrepreneur I would have had to face.

So when Asha mailed me saying that they were having the Open House in Bangalore and whether I would be interested in co-hosting the event, I didn’t say ‘yes’ because I wanted to network with some VC and get funded for my company. I said ‘yes’ because it somewhere gelled with my love for theatre and public speaking. Moreover, it was a new experience to be had and so I welcomed it.

My first meeting with the group organizing the event found me a bit lost. There were 4 of these guys who were all entrepreneurs themselves and they were chit chatting about apps and technologies that I had never even heard of, forget using them. I would be lying if I say I did not have second thoughts about my decision. But then, I had nothing to lose!

A couple of weeks passed, a few mails exchanged and we were almost good to go. We planned to catch up a day before the event to finalize everything. Since Asha was to be in town, she would also join us for the meeting. So far so good! But this was not to be.

Asha mailed in the morning of the day of the planned meet up saying Alok wants to have dinner with team Bangalore. I know this was an opportunity which some of us would die for but my first instinct was to avoid the dinner and cook up some story around it. ALOK KEJRIWAL…the name itself seemed so scary. A man with pots of gold who has been published by Forbes, ET, Business Standard, etc.!  Being a writer myself, I have always admired his art of storytelling and that was why I was more scared…scared because I somewhere always wished I could write like him, scared so much that I almost started imagining him like a Dracula. But then again, I had nothing to lose!

So comes this man wearing his now-famous Think. Do. Be T-shirt, hungry because he had not eaten anything since afternoon and ordering veg food amongst a group of people who were ready to hog on any meat available. The way he spoke to all of us, spoke to the waiter, cracked jokes with us, asked our opinion on the food we were eating, etc. made him so unlike the Dracula I had imagined him to be. He did not have any of those bloody fangs instead he had dimpled cheeks which went 2.5 inches deeper each time he smiled. Now there are two types of famous people…one, who have this halo around them and you feel small because of it and two, who have this halo but you shine under its light too. Alok was the second kinds!

On the day of the Open House, I got to see another aspect of the so-called Dracula…that of the presenter and the orator! He is so damn spontaneous and he so much makes sense. During the course of the event, he shared 14 lessons from his entrepreneurial journey. Though these lessons were meant for entrepreneurs in particular but I felt this could so easily be applied to life in general. Here’s my one-liner takes on Alok’s 14 entrepreneurial lessons:

Lesson 1: Be the ‘coolie’: No work is small till you think it to be.

Lesson 2: Find a mentor: Find a person who can guide you through both thick and thin.

Lesson 3: Don’t have a destination: Life’s a journey…so enjoy it!

Lesson 4: Hire better people than you: To be successful, you need somebody who fills your gaps, not somebody who widens them further.

Lesson 5: Suffer: Pain and pleasure are two parts of the same coin.

Lesson 6: Never stop looking: Life’s a continuous process of learning, unlearning and learning again.

Lesson 7: Don’t be obsessed by milestones: One size fits all never worked.

Lesson 8: Watch out for bad advisors: Listen to all but do only what your heart really believes in.

Lesson 9: Find your skill: You have been created to fulfill a mission…find that!

Lesson 10: Please remain humble: A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing (Einstein).

Lesson 11: Only live for your family: There’s no fun if you reach the top and find yourself lonely out there.

Lesson 12: Meet your heroes: They are not Dracula 😉

Lesson 13: Meditate. Please: Inner engineering is the pre requisite for outer growth.

Lesson 14: Share: You have to empty the cup to fill in more.

Lesson 15 (Bonus lesson): Be yourself: You are special…always remember this!

Pearls of wisdom from a Dracula common man!