Welcome to the first Ask Vishwas LIVE show.
It's been a phenomenal journey and this is going to be the 4th episode of Ask Vishwas.
With each episode, I think we are going further and reaching a lot more people out there.
What started off something as an experiment a few months ago where I started answering
a lot of questions from people on LinkedIn, to be honest.
And then Facebook, Twitter, Quora followed.
And I realized that especially in India, people have extremely basic questions.
Most of the people are trying to upgrade themselves, skill themselves in the right way to become
productive in the system.
There is a huge gap in terms of where we are in the industry and what the education system
is trying prepare us.
We have a lot of dogmas and baggage in the society that has been withholding us back.
When I looked at answering questions, I wanted to be extremely practical and extremely brutal
with honesty and absolutely no political rhetoric out there, so that it starts making sense
for people to implement in their lives.
I didn't want to sugar coat things.
I want to say it as is and I when I started doing that, I saw a lot of people connecting
with me.
Some are really unhappy with me which is a part and parcel of it.
So, when I look back, I kind of summarize it with one story.
So, I'll just tell you a quick story now - On the Internet if you search about this story,
it also says that some scientists have done research on it and there have been some experiments
on this.
Whatever said and done, it applies beautifully to today's system.
So, what a bunch of scientists did was that they took 5 monkeys, the recess monkeys.
May be some of you have already heard this story.
And they put it in a cage.
They put a bunch of very ripe bananas in the middle of the cage.
These monkeys tried everything to reach that bunch of bananas but they could not do it.
No matter what they tried, they could not get the bananas.
Next what the scientist did was, they introduced a ladder.
With the ladder, it was so easy to get up there and grab the banana.
So, what these monkeys did was they jumped and then they tried to take these bananas.
So, they took the bananas and then immediately after that the scientist sprayed cold water
on all the monkeys.
So, the monkeys were extremely upset because cold water is something that is chilling and
very bad.
So, that episode happened.
The next time again they introduced the banana the next day, the monkeys again went up and
everytime any of the monkeys tried to grab the banana, they sprayed water on them and
in a matter of 2-3 days or may be a week, the monkeys realized that these people are
punishing us.
Everytime anybody goes and touches the banana, there is a spray of cold water.
So, in sometime what happened, any monkey that tried to go and grab it, all other monkeys
used to beat him out because they don't want to get punished.So, a kind of rule was set
that nobody was allowed to touch the banana.
The scientists next replaced one old monkey with a new monkey.
That new monkey doesn't know anything.
The first thing it did was it started climbing the ladder and going for it and the other
4 monkeys they beat that monkey black and blue.
It was like 'Why are you guys beating me' and that poor monkey is getting beaten up
for no reason and it was very upset.
Next day, again the new monkey tried to go and again it got beaten up for no reason!
So, it started believing that there is a rule here that I cannot go and touch the banana
but it did not know about the cold water spray.
The cold water spray was stopped long back.
So, there is no Coldwater spray, but the new monkey thinks that it cannot go there otherwise
these people will beat me.
So, the scientists again replaced one more old monkey with a new monkey.
The same episode continued.
Because the new monkey wanted to go get the banana and all the remaining old monkeys beat
that guy up and the new monkey who had no idea about the water spray, even that monkey
beat him up.
So, again like that the 3rd one was replaced, the 4th one was replaced and the 5th one was
replaced.
Now all the 5 monkeys are new monkeys and none of them are going and touching the bananas
and none of them know about this cold water spray punishment.
So, what is showed was basically, that people are following rules that our ancestors have
set 100s of years ago.
We are still following it without even questioning.
So that is where the society is right now!
In my show, I wanted to look at disrupting these dogmas, these mental barriers that we
have.
That is what was the whole aspiration of me starting this show.
But before I start of, I wanted to understand what is your expectation from this show?
Anything particular that you have in mind?
What is that you are expecting from this show?
I am Subramaniam, I have 25 years of experience and was working in the corporate world and
I had an onsite in South Africa.
But recently, I quit my job and since the last 6 months, I have been in touch with many
for Startup ideas but I am in a confused state now.
With my experience, will I be able to continue as a consultant for Business Development,
Project management, and Program management?
So, should I continue with these consulting services for corporates or startup a company?
I want to become an Entrepreneur but is it too late for me to start now?
I want to know how you can guide me.
So, one thing about Entrepreneurship is that you need to have an idea on what you want
to get from entrepreneurship.
This is very critical.
It's a time of a roller coaster ride adn you then need to be prepared for a long haul.
What I would do is, first of all identify what is that onen thing that drives you.
What is that particular skill that you have or service you have that you want to pursue.
That is the first thing you want to do.
Secondly, you need to condition your mind to tell that things are not going to happen
very fast in Entrepreneurship.
There may be times in the initial few months or years where you don't see much revenue
coming in.
You need to be prepared in a practical way to support yourself and your family.
The other thing you should do right now is, if you are already in a corporate job, you
may want to look at moon-lighting as an option.
I always recommend that and I believe in having a very fair and open discussion with your
employer.
Tomorrow if even my employees want to start off, I would encourage that.
So, I suggest that you go and talk to them, tell them you have this idea and want to pursue
it.
Tell them what you are doing right now.
As long as it is not competing with your current employer, they are not going to have any problems
with that.
And you can actually experiment a little with that.
If it is a service, you can have your own digital presence.
You can have some marketing spend there and get some customers.
You can see how it feels to be an entrepreneur.
Get some traction and then you decide to quit.
I would feel that this is a right way of doing things.
But there will come a point where you will have to quit.
That is how it is!
You cannot be sailing in two ships.
You have to sail in just one ship and then you have to quit at one point in time.
So, another analogy is basically that you are going to climb your own Mount Everest.
You need to define what is your Mount Everest.
So, what they tell about entrepreneurship is that, are you will to start your journey
from where people return from.
If you can start the journey, validate your idea and then you decide to quit.
That is the right way of going ahead.