Lessons from the 27th year of life

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, one of the best prime ministers India has even seen used to write a poem on his every birthday. He is a great poet and if you can read Hindi poetry you much try his works. Not I am not Atal Bihari nor am I a poet but last time I wrote a post on my birthday where I introspected and shared the lessons that year had brought to me. As I turn 27 today it would only make sense to continue this tradition and try to keep doing it as long as I can. I’ll be honest that this year was not as eventful as the last one was but it brought with it not great lessons and memories nonetheless. Also a lot of the lessons from last year were reaffirmed this time. Some of the new learnings this year brought with it are

Fight for what you love – Love is not a small thing and should not be taken lightly. If you claim to love something you should not just be working for it, taking care of it but you should be ready to fight anything for it. It does not matter what it is but if you love something you have to give it your 100%. Life is too short for taking important things for granted.

Build more, sell even more – Technology entrepreneurs usually tend to fall in love with their product/venture and are happy with that only. They are content with the fact that they have made a technically sound product and that it should sell itself. At times they get so attached that they even start neglecting any feedback that they might be receiving. This year taught me that selling is as important as building a great product. Selling is the gap between a great and a successful product.

You can’t rise until you help others rise – You cannot be successful alone. You just cant. If you are a vendor you cannot rise unless your clients succeed, and if you are a customer you cannot benefit if your vendor is not progressing. A company rises only with the rise of the employees and not just the bosses. So be inclusive. Involve others in your plans and build new relationships. Unless you make things happen for others the same would never happen for you. Start trusting people if you want them to trust you.

Make sure you make time for hobbies – In the initial years of Green Apple Solutions I let a lot of my hobbies take a back burner and concentrated all my time on working. Now I realize that it was wrong and for me to function properly it is important that I take out times for activities I love and that add value to me. Fortunately 2013 has been a year of good reading, trying new music and regular writing. I how to keep it like this in future.

*Life is too short – *Although this I had learnt last year only but this point is so important that it deserves an honorary mention again. Life is very precious and equally short for doing things that do not make you happy so one must work actively to make sure not of it is wasted. Weed out the not-so-good people in your life and make sure you retain the good one. Never say not a beer with a friend and always help the one in need. Life is more or less a zero-sum game and whatever you give to the world will come back to you. Live for today as long term plans seldom work out. Be Ok. Be Happy.

Other than this the lessons from the last time are still very much valid and I am happy that I didn’t take much time in taking those lessons. Apart from this there are a few goals that I am setting for the coming year