You read in an earlier blogpost by Amjad on why its important to act upon our ideas. This post should give you some idea on How.
It doesn’t matter where you start – but that, You Start?
True magic lies not in the idea itself but rather the execution. Adding to this, it might sound counter-intuitive to some. But it just doesn’t matter where you start. What is primary – is that YOU START.
Beginnings have a certain zing in them. A sort of an upthrust, a push – a nitro boost that zooms you ahead giving you the momentum to reach the next step.
Gravity is real – Things do fall in place
A lack of structure is certainly bound to make one feel nervous to take the first steps. But as one starts treading slowly – the steps fall into place and what was once just an idea – actually takes shape. It happened with us, it will happen with you.
When we started Synclarity – we only had an inkling of what we wanted to build. Something around social media, digital marketing using technology combined with creativity is all what we had. Once we started putting in the work towards synclarity – we started thinking of niche, customer segments, inbound marketing, hubspot.
What started off in our minds, took shape over VOIP, internet, across pixels, documents, slack, co-working spaces, coffee shops and more. Now also we are rough around the edges but we are more structured than before. And improving in small increments everyday.
No one knows it all
As one observes the raging success of an influencer / media personality – one can’t help but fall prey to the idea that the influencer is a know-it-all. This is such a trap, as one starts assuming a direct proportionality between success and knowledge.
Quite simply, Does one need to know, “How to drive” – to instruct a driver to reach to a particular destination? The simple answer is No!
You need to know, where you want to go – the destination. That’s it! Along the way you will meet fellow travellers (team mates) and guides (mentors / advisors) – they will help you figure the way.
Strategy versus Tactics
The move from Strategy to Tactics always shouts out to me – The egg and the chicken conundrum.
As Sun Tzu puts it – “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
Both the aspects are entwined in each other and constantly redefine each other. In a recent case, we started working on a project for a client’s Digital Strategy. We were so overwhelmed with all the analysis that we could not jump into the next stage. As we started observing each and every step with utmost caution. What we thought of as caution was in fact a paralysis where in we found it difficult to move into action.
It’s only when we kicked our asses into action that we could test out the strategies and find some loopholes, face real-time challenges and come up with a plan for the next-stage. No amount of planning prepares you for the action! You have to get your hands dirty to figure out the best way.
Following are some points in our journey where we found liberation only by taking action.
How did we start the blog?
Both Amjad and I are fond of reading and have this love for writing. Amjad actually has a treasure of handwritten notes of all that he has read, understood and his thoughts on things. Writing a blog was always on both of our lists. We tried a number of times to actually discuss topics and start writing and in a week’s time; submit the topic.
Tried, researched and failed. For some reason didn’t find the time. No matter our intention, we just couldn’t manage to do it.
This is when Mr. Desai, thinks of a challenge – A challenge of 30 Days non-stop writing, publishing the blog everyday. To make things interesting, the one who doesn’t publish stands to lose 1000 INR for every blog he misses.
The Result – This is day 25 and we have posted 23 Blogs in this period.
Fun Fact – I missed the deadline twice. Once, found myself on the keyboard sleeping while writing the blog – leading to missing the deadline. And another time – i failed.
How did we start our own Company
The short story – The Hiring Hustle
The long story – Will update soon
Embrace Failure
The thing that stops most of us from taking action is the fear of failure and the stigma around it. More than anything, failure is the path to success. When a child learns to walk, he trips, falls down, tumbles and more. But these things don’t stop him from trying. Eventually the sense of balance and motor skills improve and we get a walking child.
The same is true for us. Failure is not the end. Only a part of the process that informs us to try harder or smarter.
I really love this quote by JK Rowling where she states – “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
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