We invest our money in shares, fixed deposits, mutual funds, etc., so that we can grow our wealth. This is part of our financial planning program, where we realize that in order to get good financial returns we HAVE to necessarily invest our money. I would like to extend this concept to one of the most important components of our life – our careers. It’s important to realize that in order to have a great career, we need to invest in it! Have you invested anything for your career?

I consider some of the following items as investments for career growth:

# Continuous acquisition of knowledge
# Skill development to apply knowledge
# Building a network of contacts and connections
# Hard Work and Perseverance
# Sacrifice (At times in order to get something, we may have to sacrifice something else).
# Helping others to make them better and achieve something in their life
# Participating in social welfare programs-The learning here is not only an investment but also realization about life itself!

We can add many more items to this list. The point is to realize that only when we invest we get some returns, be it finance or career.

Investments in career should be like a recurring deposit, we need to periodically and continuously invest to get good returns later.

Your investment in career is an insurance policy for your financial investments…

“Life is a game, play it!” This is the way I treat my life. Numbers (finance/money) are part and parcel in an entrepreneur’s life, making the life of an entrepreneur ‘the game of numbers’.

Being comfortable with numbers is a big plus for an entrepreneur. I recently learnt from a financial expert that, ‘Books of Accounts’ is treated as a ‘Horoscope of the company’. It speaks a lot about the past and can project the possible future of the business. Successful entrepreneurs know how the numbers plays and behave. If you are an entrepreneur or want to be one then you need to have good number skills else you need to have a strong numbers person complementing your skills.

A budding financial consultant SCA Keertana relates life itself to a Balance Sheet and has provided the following unique equation-

Birth: Opening Balance

Death: Closing Balance

Soul: Fixed Asset

Brain: Fixed Deposit

Heart: Current Asset

Idea: Current Account

Achievement: Capital

Character: Closing Stock

Friend: General Reserve

Behavior: Goodwill

Patience: Interest Earned

Love: Dividend

Children: Bonus Issue

Education: Patents

Wisdom: Investment

Experience: Premium Account

“A score board for life makes it easy to measure” – Naveen Lakkur

Wondering what’s a cup of coffee got to do with startups or leadership?

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old University Professor. The conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the Professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large cup of coffee and an assortment of cups-porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain-looking, some exquisite-while telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the Professor asked his students whether they had noticed that all the best looking cups were taken first leaving behind the ordinary looking ones. The Professor said that it is human nature that we always want the best things for ourselves, but that is the source for all our problems. We have to realize that the cup adds no value to the coffee. What we really drink and want is the coffee but still we go for the best cups!! He then related this episode to life. The Professor said that life is like the coffee; the jobs, money, fame are like the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The type of cup we have never determines the quality of the coffee. The Professor concluded beautifully by saying that we always tend to concentrate only on the cup and fail to enjoy the coffee.

3 Cents from this story:

$ For entrepreneurs, it’s very tempting to have best of the things like a great looking office, equipments, infrastructure, cash reserves, etc., when a new initiative is started, but that’s the cup. The focus should be on the coffee, which is the objective of the initiative, the purpose of that business.
$ Having a coach like the professor is such an important aspect in life. The advantage is that they demonstrate “The most profound truths are learnt in the simplest parables”.
$ Leaders are Teachers; they provide an entirely new perspective and set right direction.

Coffee by itself is fluid and will take the shape of the cup that holds it. Similarly life is like coffee, you decide the cup which will hold it. And why not the best cup!