4 years ago, today, I was unemployed or as they call it “Self-Employed”. On 30 Nov 2013, the last day of my job I never thought 4 years later I be wishing Goodly (or let’s say my entrepreneurial self) a happy birthday.
Although I had all intentions of lasting as long as I could but more realistically was I betting on my self for one solid year and then let’s see if this works
I have seldom written personal stuff here. Almost everything here is binary (true/false). If you have ever craved for knowing me further than a just spreadsheet jockey, then you’ll love this
Quick Beginnings – People often ask me, how did I begin? Was it hard to leave the comfort of a fixed salary?
There came a time in my job when the investment bank that I was working with wasn’t doing that well and all the Sr Associate salaries were withheld for the last 3 months. I was one of them. But I was still kinda okay..
I had been doing one off random consulting/training assignments to make an extra buck beyond the fixed salary. So when the salary famine struck, I had some reserves to fall back to. But then I had a strong decision to make
- Should I go back and pick up another job ?
- Or should I organize my offerings and start some of my own ?
After a month of deliberation/research (let’s call it dealing with anxiety) I picked up…. Yeah you got it right 🙂
Between then and now – A lot has changed since the time I started. I was dealing with sustainability problems in the initial days as compared to filtering assignments that I work on now, trying to optimize the best use of my time
People say it’s my hard work – Well I won’t doubt that I have put in a lot of work trying to make it work and it hasn’t been an easy ride but it is also about luck. Yes Luck! I say that because
- I know of people who are twice as hardworking and smart as me but things din’t work out for them as expected
- There were times I got done with a difficult thing with ease, not because of anything but luck!
Hard to explain! But I guess you’ll take my word for it 🙂
Goodly for me today – is more about a lifestyle than anything else. I make a decent living, play with my kid, travel a lot, sleep late if I want to (mostly I want to), workout in the middle of the day and write blogs like these 😀
Now don’t get too impressed and imagine me all happy and seldom sad, the grass always looks greener on the other side. I too have a fair share of problems and worries that yet give me sleepless nights.
A lot of budding entrepreneurs ask my suggestions – frankly I haven’t made that big in life to give you business or life advice but I’ll share what has worked for me and if I had to do it all over again, how will I go about it
- I din’t plan for the upside – I particularly thought (and planned for) what would I do if I din’t make any money in the first year? Do I have the reserves to sustain and get back to a job if nothing worked out? After my grounds were covered, I worked my ass off to become sustainable. Period!
- I like being healthy – I’d like to stay healthy. Lift, Run, Play in the park and do such stuff with aggression. It is a great stress buster.
- No more suggestions – Just apply common sense and start before it too late!
Thank you
If you have stuck around till the end of my personal rant, I owe you a big one not just for reading this but also for standing by me all this while. I love you and your support, I couldn’t have been without you
Thank you so much for setting me free and once again happy birthday Goodly 😉
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PS: That is not a real cake. I just morphed some image from the web, you know.. decking up and all 😀
