It has been 14 months since the last post here. During this time, a constant chain of activities including consulting for a foreign firm about brand establishment in India, helping organize and doing sales for a pioneering event in Kerala, starting up and working with about 10-15 wonderful clients, meeting people, reading up and a few other things kept me occupied.

A roller coaster ride with an exciting series of ups and downs experienced first hand. Here is a list of 14 lessons that I picked up in the course of this journey.

On Leadership and Management
1. To change any system you’ve got to first walk a mile or two in the existing one.
2. As a manager, you would see them as teams or groups or subordinates but to each one of them you are his/her boss. They are two (and too) different things.
3. Creating a healthy organizational culture is very difficult but sustaining it through difficult times is much more difficult.
4. It is good to identify the core value you’re looking to gain from every association and maintain your expectations accordingly, be it monetary, networking and relationship, mentoring etc.

On Sales
5. Sales = Science + Art + lots of Luck + extreme Efforts + Shrewdness
6. ‘Yeh I like it’ has ZERO value. It lies entirely in the next ‘Here’s my money’ line.
7. The money you make out of something and your motivation to do / sign up for it are very closely related.
8. The contract/agreement is an extremely powerful tool you wield. Handle it unwisely and you’re bound to doom.

On Starting Up
9. The best thing about being unemployed is the freedom that you have, to welcome new opportunities that come your way and chase them.
10. To let go of a well settled life and a good paycheck to start up is a challenging decision and it is not something everyone can, or should, make.
11. Entrepreneurship/ Starting up is an over glorified thing especially considering the extremely high ratio of strugglers to successful ones in that breed.
12. Ideas are aplenty but successful businesses out of them are few and far between.
13. Products facilitate services, and service sells.
14. It goes a long way to have an understanding family and a bunch of close friends who discuss ideas and do so with candidness