On the occasion of Father's Day, entrepreneur Deep Malhotra shares the lessons he learnt from his father...
Post adolescence one of the most complex close relationship that a man shares is with his father.
More so, in India where the father-son relationship is usually a nervous one.
The reason for this is that the kids who are born during the 80s have seen so much change in their lifestyle and their general outlook towards life is very different from their dads, who have had a very guarded childhood.
This is where the disconnect starts from, and then builds on.
Well mine was a similar relationship with my dad, where we didn't agree on most things. But that didn't bother us much as our paths never crossed which was more on purpose, as I didn't want to join the real estate business, the one that he built from scratch and was happy, and on the other side of the spectrum I was working with global companies.
But the way destiny would have it, I had to land in his space and we were in middle of chaos of handling each other's expectations.
The next couple of years were not easy as we had a complete different approach in doing things. But as I spent more time with him I got to know him as a person and experience of working with him taught me many life hacks:
1. How you see yourself is more important than how people see you
A pawn needs to see himself as a king before the world sees him like one. My dad started off with humble beginnings, but as a family we have always had a royal life.
We never felt that we were going through a struggling time even if the reality was different.
It was his larger than life attitude that made him do things for the family which maybe wasn't affordable at that time.
2. Be persistent, as it takes time to build a stable business
He used to always say this "It takes at least 1000 days to build a stable business and you have to be persistent to take the business through the rough path."
My dad didn't have many passions, but the only passion he had was his work. But it wasn't the passion for the work that helped him build the business but the persistence of not letting it go.
I feel that if you put passion and persistence in a boxing ring, persistence will always win. Because passion would just love to fight but persistence won't know how to give up on the fight.
3. Don't take failure to your heart
This one quality of my dad which I feel if I can imbibe in me, it will help me a lot.
He was a person who never flinched even when he had put years of effort in something and ultimately it didn't go his way.
He would never take that setback to his heart and just continue working full steam ahead nevertheless.
We should understand that in the process of building your dreams you may go through detours that can be nightmares, but one should get up and not stop working towards that dream. The fun is to start rewriting your story when you are being written off.
4. When you play the odds with a backup plan it's not risk but smart business move
When I look back and try to understand certain investments he made in certain projects, it amazes me.
He invested in projects which seemed very risky at that time and also the money required for them at that time was not with us. But that didn't deter him to take the plunge, as he always had an exit plan in case everything fell out of place.
He truly knew the art to make money when you have no money.
5. Kill the ego before it kills your good work
When it was anything related to work, my dad never had a ego. He never let ego come in the way of getting any work done.
Even if that means giving a phone call to someone he didn't see eye-to-eye with, but if it is something that is related to work he wouldn't shy away to call that person. Because it is work and that came above the ego for him.
My advice to everyone reading this: Beyond all the arguments and disagreements that you have with your dad make sure you learn from their experience in life, as that will help you build your life better. I think I am very lucky to work with my dad closely after being exposed to my corporate journey.
The experience of working with him for all these years taught me a lot and I owe all my success in business to him. And I am sure if he would be there today we would still have lot of arguments and disagreements, which I miss a lot.
Those discussions helped me learn so many things from him. Love you DAD!
Lead Image: The author with his father
Deep Malhotra is the co-founder of beckfriends.com and Gemini Group. Deep has entrepreneurial and start-up experience in working with companies like Google, MySpace and Rediff.com.
