Life Skills For The Modern-Day Entrepreneur

The professional of tomorrow cannot navigate with just the front mirror and the rear mirror, but needs to have the instinct to look at every road sign, changing weather patterns and fading landscape, and imbibe every tessellation of what is around them. For the future is just around the blind corner

- Rajesh Nair

We spend time to learn from the ‘My stories’ of great entrepreneurs. Often what we take away is the ‘romantic’ tryst they had with their ventures, the thrilling ups and downs they faced in the business scenario and the stupendous success, especially from when it is a ‘rags to riches’ story. They are all often true and that is the essence of celebrating entrepreneurship. But, what we miss is some of the other habits of the entrepreneur which got her or him thus far. And, in this array of habits lie fairly non-glitzy and less alluring ones – listening, taking notes, etc.

On listening: It is a silent truth that one of the key aspects of persuasion is the ability to listen and understand. This is often neglected when we rate articulation much higher than listening. And, as they say, we refuse to put listening on the same pedestal as ‘speaking well’. One of the most undervalued of skills, it is also still in a nascent state as a business competency. As an entrepreneur, our minds perceive that the biggest challenge is to explain our idea, product or service to others. It needs to be mentally reinforced that our pitches become much more refined when we listen to the stakeholders around – particularly, their questions. It could be the insightful suggestion of a junior team member, an acerbic comment of a customer, the pointed query of an investor – all of them help you build your repertoire of responses. We are also driven by the need to feel that what we hear confirms our beliefs and ideas - what Dan Kanhemann calls the ‘confirmation bias’.