Like everyone else, I enjoy doing a lot of things. But I realised I needed one thing I could be exceptional in. I decided that would be coaching. I gave up a lot of passions like painting and baking to spend more time on coaching. This was a conscious decision.
Yesterday I happened to meet a friend, the founder of a successful business venture. She is a recognized expert at what she does. Hours and hours of work and passion have brought her to the level she is currently in. A couple of months ago she excitedly told me she was starting a second venture. I was happy for her but wondered how she would manage both. When I met her yesterday, she told me she was shutting down the second venture as it was interfering with the first. I was disappointed. But I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. The first venture was her life’s work. It cannot be diluted with anything else.
Like a game of chess, sometimes one has to choose one’s moves carefully. One has to plan into the future, visualize the outcome one wants and not be seduced into making greedy, short-term moves. Sometimes those moves give us some immediate gratification. But it’s not aligned to our long term goal. You can’t be epic all the time. Sometimes you lie low, choose not to be epic, be average for the time being, until you can be epic later… in a way you can’t be now.
In life and in work, doing that means distinguishing between a hobby and calling. I am a competent baker. I also enjoy the work. But coaching is my calling. Coaching comes from a deeper part of me, my life force, and it is how I am going to leave a dent in the universe. I know this.
Similarly with entrepreneurial ventures, dive into Plan A. Give it all you’ve got. It’s good to have Plan B as backup. But don’t jump to plan B before you have given your 110% to Plan A. Sometimes the person who wins isn’t the one with the most talent. It’s the person who stood in the ring long often.
Stay in the ring with Plan A. Pour everything you have into it.
About the Author:
Sandhya Reddy is a leadership & transformation coach based in Bangalore, India. She is the Founder and Principal Coach at Chapter Two Coaching, a coaching consultancy that enables everyone from CEOs to work-from-home parents to achieve their goals by replacing self-imposed limitations with enabling stories.
Many of us in our thirties experience a disquieting realization: what brought us to middle-management may not take us to senior-management. This is true. To chart a new career path, one needs to think and do things differently. This is where Sandhya can help. She is a coach. Life coaching, executive coaching, business coaching, personality development, leadership coaching… they are all part of her forte. Her Executive coaching programs helps tomorrow’s leaders set new goals, make new plans to achieve those goals, get that elusive promotion through a blend of knowledge, action and image-building, enhance influence among the leadership team, be more productive, get more out of one’s team, and be known in the company as an indispensable performer and future leader.