This is not really a follow up (pun not intended) to my post on how to make the most of your day job while running your business. However, the idea certainly is an off shoot of it.

Initiative and follow up - these two words essentially sum up what I have learned from my days as an employee, which has helped me become a better man in terms of achieving things.

In my relatively short career, I have had two jobs and held four different positions in them. As a young man fresh out of college, I wasn’t someone who had a bunch of ideas to bring in. On the contrary, I was a lazy bum who was scared to try anything new other than what was told to me. To be honest I was blown by the immensity of being in a workplace where your actions were accountable.

Taking Initiative by its Horns

But this wasn’t me, and so I didn’t feel comfortable working thus. No I didn’t quit my job because of that, rather I just started looking at my seniors and began studying them. And pretty soon, with their help I figured the catchphrase that lasted my entire tenure there. “Take initiative”. It is something we have taught and spread to everyone who was hired thereafter. And it is the biggest lesson I took home ever.

Fortunately for me, taking initiative wasn’t something that I had to strain with. Once I realized the whole idea of participation and taking lead, I realized how I have been doing it since I was a kid. The key was moving from taking responsibility to taking initiative. The difference is instead of being told, you take the onus of telling. This helped me a lot in my career and opened quite a few doors for me at my workplace to newer opportunities and experience.

I think, that is when the seed of entrepreneurship was sown in my mind. I suddenly became enterprising and I always believe this sense of initiative to be my guiding light in my ventures.

The Idea of Following Up

Following up, or rather the importance of it is something I learned recently at my current job. It sort of fits with the cycle, because follow up is essentially the second step to initiative. Your initiatives make a lot more meaning when it makes things happen. But as many of you might know, things don’t just happen by speaking about it, especially when it requires changes. You need to push and prod for the stone to roll. And that is where follow up comes in.

Many business deals and customers go because of our inertia, because we don’t do the follow up. Funny part is, most of us do know this well, but hardly do anything about it. I am certainly one of them. Not following up is procrastination and procrastination kills an entrepreneur.

Make that call again, talk to your colleagues about what happened of your suggestion, send mails to the new people you meet (note to self), send another mail to that top dog you want to connect with badly. Let them know you mean business and you are here for it (another note to self). Follow up.

Today is Teacher’s Day in my country, and I thought it appropriate to share what I have learned over the past couple of years with you today. If you ever find yourself in a situation where things seem stagnant, take a step back and look for these words, perhaps you were missing them.

And yeah, if there is something more we need to teach each other I think it should be world peace. So spread the word and love and perhaps this post as well.

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