How to Quit Your Job and Find Yourself!

Cyril Prince with Rajiv Talreja

After 2 and a half years of working as a Business Coach with Asia's leading business coaching organisation, creating multiple success stories for various MSME business owners across 7 countries, and helping them generate additional multi-crore revenues of income, I decided to move on to pursue my own business.

Was it an easy decision? Definitely not! From being a business coach, to being a full time business owner, was far from easy a decision to make. I contemplated for months before I took the plunge. I made the decision of venturing into my own business despite knowing all the challenges business owners go through across various industries.

There is a certain sense of excitement, freedom and liberation, that comes from working for yourself. Being able to set your own standards and work towards meeting new benchmarks, it certainly is worth it on many levels. And I have witnessed that through my work coaching countless business owners, even the ones who really struggled, but had their heart and soul in the right place.

After working with business owners across 40 different industries, here are my key insights:

1) You got to put in the work, no matter how smart of a plan you create.

2) There is no such thing as "perfect strategy". YOUR management style, YOUR customer type, YOUR industry, YOUR product/service, YOUR connections, that's what ultimately makes the strategy work.

3) Understand your own decision-making capability. Without really knowing the science behind what gets you to choose A over B, and if it's just a "gut feeling" or "instinct", you're gambling.

4) Take care of your family. The people you live with really help in setting the tone in your mind space. Encourage positive language and learn how to take care of each other's needs, whilst also practising the art of assertive communication.

5) Take care of your team (the people you work with). If you don't know whom to let go and when to let go, then that's an invitation to downfall. In parallel, appreciate, acknowledge and reward your team with your time, money/gifts, or even words.

6) Never stop learning. You can go obsolete rather quickly, irrespective of who you are, or how valuable you thought you were once upon a time.

7) The 33% rule:

- Spend 1/3rd of your time with your mentors and ensure you're getting feedback in order to make progress;

- Spend 1/3rd of your time with peers, to share pain and success, to understand and collect perspectives, to laugh together, to collaborate, and for general kadak chai pe mazedar charcha (conversations over a cup of tea);

- Spend the remaining 1/3rd of your time mentoring other people. When you teach, you integrate and comprehend information better. As a bonus, you become more patient.

8) For most of us, success does not teach much. Failure gives you a lot more than you can ever ask for: additional perspectives, how not to do something, self-confidence, humility and a willingness to experiment.

9) Stress is good. Focused stress in short bursts helps work all the muscles (in your brain and business 🙂), but frequent stress over the same topic for long periods of time leads to irreversible health issues. And that's not worth anything, certainly not if you're seeking holistic development in life.

10) Don't underestimate the power of hiring a coach, no matter the role you play. A good coach can help you organize your thoughts. A good coach can help you gather perspectives and choose from the ones that serve you the best in that moment in time. A good coach can ask you the right questions, coming up with answers to some of those questions can be transformative.

I have made some really good friends during this time, some friends who are going to stay for life. I'm grateful for this enriching journey, for everything I have experienced, and everything that I have become.

I experienced the inner-working of this massive industry. That doesn't mean much if I don't put it into action right away. So, to paraphrase Steve Jobs, I'm ready to leave a dent in the universe myself.

What excites me the most to help people on this journey of figuring out their own path is to carve a strategy, be able to stick with the course, and find themselves rather than lose themselves.

I have transcended beyond business coaching, and now I'm in the business of life, development, success and performance. And I am already helping people meet their own success, push their ceilings of limitation, and make this life really worth living.

If you are someone who needs support in your journey, let's connect.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.