An Enemy Within!

I am an entrepreneur from the core of my heart, but I work as an IT employee. But give me a viable opportunity to become an entrepreneur, I will not even give a second thought to leave my job and start my journey in Entrepreneurship. But the problem is nobody gives me that opportunity 🙂 and I cannot afford to experiment with Career because I am not born with silver spoon in my mouth the way Abhishek Bachhan, Anil Ambani or Siddharth Mallya have born. Due to this I am forced to live two lives – the current one which I am living as an IT employee and other  the unlived life, one which I long to live for, as an Entrepreneur. And trust me, this world is full of painters who don’t paint, singers who don’t sing, writers who don’t write, and entrepreneurs like me who never start a venture. Let’s do a quick experiment here to believe it. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. Think loud with me that one fine day Mukesh Ambani writes a will to give away all his money to you. And mind you, the net worth of Mukesh Ambani is 20 bn $, and now you own all that money. And hence you don’t have to care about earning for living at all. In this situation, can those people raise their hand honestly, who would still be doing the same work that you do today in your career? Keeping your hands up, now open your eyes.

Friends,

As you can see, most of us are living two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. And there is an enemy within us which holds us and doesn’t want us to move towards that unlived life. I got to know about that enemy from a best seller book “Word of Art” by Steven Pressfield that I read recently. And the name of the enemy that stands between the two lives is Resistance. Resistance is like sharks in Jaws movie. It cannot be reasoned with. It understands nothing but power. It is an engine of destruction, programmed from the factory with one object only: to prevent us from doing our work. There is a very beautiful story about this destructive enemy called resistance.

Two seeds lay side by side in the fertile spring soil. The first seed said, “I want to grow! I want to send my roots deep into the soil beneath me and thrust my sprouts through the earth’s crust above me…. I want to unfurl my tender buds like banners to announce the arrival of spring. … I want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the blessing of the morning dew on my petals!” And so she grew. The second seed said, “I am afraid. If I send my roots into the ground below, I don’t know what I will encounter in the dark. If I push my way through the hard soil above me I may damage my delicate sprouts …what if I let my buds open and a snail tries to eat them? And if I were to open my blossoms, a small child may pull me from the ground. No, it is much better for me to wait until it is safe.” And so she waited. A yard hen scratching around in the early spring ground for food found the waiting seed and promptly ate it. And who is the real enemy of the second seed. No, it’s not hen, it’s the Resistance of the second seed.

But if you think, we have been winning small battles against resistance all through life, hence we are sitting here. All toastmasters sitting here have already won against the resistance of public speaking. I remember how sceptical I was when I went to the club for the first time in August 2014 in Noida Toastmasters Club. The reason was since I knew that I am not a good public speaker and actually I never even tried it even during my school or college days. I was one of those students who used to start looking down the moment teacher used to ask students to nominate themselves for anything related with speaking. But after attending two sessions as a guest and participating in a Table topic I thought I can also make it. Hence, my journey started. You will see people in similar situation so many times, they want to improve their communication skills, but resistance doesn’t allow them to improve it, some even want to join the Toastmasters, but resistance doesn’t allow them to come, some even participate as guests but resistance doesn’t allow them to join it, and then there are few Toastmasters who has joined it, but resistance doesn’t allow them to be leverage this platform by hardly attending sessions :). The only regret now I have with joining Toastmasters is why I joined it so late. If I would have joined it in my start of the career, I would have been a DTM by now. But better late than never.

To yield to resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. Hence, even though I am still an IT employee and have not become entrepreneur yet, but mind you, I am not going to be overpowered by resistance hence I keep trying to become an entrepreneur.  I have only learnt from each of the failures and only have got even more motivated to keep trying to become entrepreneur someday, I won’t let my enemy named resistance to succeed in make me lesser than what I am – an entrepreneur. And if you too find asking yourself “Am I really a writer, am I really an artist? Chances are you are. Trust me, resistance has no strength of its own, every ounce of the juice it possess comes from us, we feed it with power by fear of it. Let’s master that fear and conquer this enemy within us called resistance.

Thank you!

P.S. – Delivered this speech as my P10 (CC10) project at Toastmasters. This was my first major milestone in Toastmasters since after 10th Speech Toastmasters certifies and recognises the member as “Competent Communicator” 🙂

References –

• http://encouragementfromastranger.com/2010/book-review-the-war-of-art-steven-pressfield/
• https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/722104-the-war-of-art-break-through-the-blocks-and-win-your-inner-creative-bat
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/prescriptions-life/201203/the-war-art-the-reason-you-re-avoiding-your-most-important-work
• https://www.jeffsanders.com/best-practices-from-the-war-of-art/
• http://firstknowwhatyouwant.com/read-the-story-online/overcoming-resistance
• http://www.managementpsychology.com/articles/do-the-work-overcoming-resistance/