Episode 5 on Persistence

Hi there. Welcome to episode number five of spontaneous Conversations. This is Ravi Gundlapalli, founder CEO of Metro Cloud.

This is Rajesh Sethi. I'm a serial entrepreneur and author.

Fantastic. Rajesh, I'm really glad the way this is going. The fact that we just pick a topic and start recording. And the topic that we're going to talk today is about persistence.

Yeah, that's a great topic. Ravi, the moment you suggested the topic, which was like 15 seconds ago, I remembered my favorite quote. And this has been my guiding light for most of my professional life. And this is from Abraham Lincoln. And the quote goes like this. I will prepare, and someday my chance will come.

I will prepare someday my chance will come. That's amazing.

That's for me.

So expand on that a little bit.

Yeah. So most of the time we know that we start working on it sometimes like a roller coaster ride. Being an entrepreneur, I'm sure we both have experienced the roller coaster ride multiple times. So a lot of times we assume things, this will happen. I will do this. This will happen. And in case of Abraham Lincoln, as you know, the number of times he had to. He failed before he became a president, it's like a world record there. But he never gave up on preparing.

So he kept preparing, knowing that someday his chance will come. And boy did his chance come. He became the president and he made amazing things happen. But if he didn't think like that, I failed here, I failed there, but stopped preparing, that chance would never have come.

Or if he was just focusing on the chance, not the preparation.

Yes.

Because if you just focus on the chance, Right. You're just going to this person, can you help me? Can you help me? Can you help me? So a lot of times you're focusing on the result, which is your preparation, rather than doing what you need to do. That makes you a better candidate and the world will recognize and then, you know, the opportunity strikes.

Totally agree.

So again.

The topic of persistence is he persisted in what he believed in. He didn't give up when things didn't happen. So that's what persistence is. You just keep at it because of your belief, not what the world tells you to believe.

Exactly. See, we all know the value of timing, right? Especially as entrepreneurs. Timing is everything. But unfortunately, neither of us or many of the entrepreneurs that we know are genius people. Where they say, I know exactly when to do it and I will pick the exact timing and I will just. It will be a rocket ship after that. So until the timing hits, what do we do? So we just Keep doing whatever we are doing and we become better at doing what we are doing. So I always believe that one thing is to add value is whatever way we are trying to do. Like even in this conversation we are trying to see what should we talk so that it's valuable to people or we engage in helping ourselves become somebody that can add value, better value in the future. So either we add value or we increase our capacity to add more value.

Yes. I think I want to add the word intelligent persistence.

Yes.

Because simply persisting on something even though if it's not working is in my opinion, madness.

That's like running like a hamster in a wheel.

Exactly. So I think I want the listeners to kind of get clarified that persistence does not mean doing things over and over again and expecting different results. Persistence means that you are clear on your end goal. You have sort of an underlying belief in that end goal and your capabilities, but you are smart enough to make the course corrections to get to your destination. It's like I want to reach the airport, I have an 8pm flight and I leave at 4pm thinking I have sufficiently planned for the commute and the traffic and so on. But sometimes there could be unexpected circumstances. So do you give up? Do you take some side streets and eventually get to the airport? So I find people are persistent when it comes to taking a flight, but they are not persistent when it comes to achieving a goal, whether it is starting a company or achieving a particular milestone. I don't know what's about this catching up planes. Everybody is so stressed out and they make it happen all the time.

Yeah, it's basically if you double click on it, right? The end goal is very clear. Either you catch a flight or don't catch a flight. That's about it. It's like black and white or zero or one kind of thing. But in life not everything is black or white or not everything is 0 or 1. Like how do you become successful as an entrepreneur? So there is no 0 or 1, there like there are shades of gray where you can end up. So like catch a flight, it's black, don't catch a flight, it's white. But being an entrepreneur, successful as an entrepreneur, is it good if you build a 10 million dollar company or is it good if you build a lifestyle company? It is so subjective, the life decisions, that's when the persistence wanes because they don't know. How do you know that you are growing every single day?

Exactly. I mean, if you set yourself a goal that you don't know, you have achieved. That's like you are always in that sort of gray zone. So the thought that comes to my mind is, why can't we make the journey.

With milestones that are black and white? Like, I want to write 10 blogs by end of June. I want to write two chapters of my book by end of the year. I want to reach half a million dollar revenue run rate by this time so people can set goals and then be persistent to achieve them, no matter what obstacles come in the way.

Yeah, I think as you know, it sounds simple, but why don't people do it? For me it's a fear of failure and they don't want to let themselves down or let.

Those people that have believed them down. So best is to have a vague goal, right? So somehow I will make it happen. And sometimes you ask young people, what do you want to become? So they will say, I'm still figuring it out. So that way whatever they become, right? So they can always escape because I was figuring it out. It was not like that.

There is no end to this.

There is no end to it. So you just ask them, can you make up your mind? They say, yeah, there are too many things. Let me think about it. They don't want to stake a claim. They don't want to say. If they say they want to write a book and you start asking them specific questions, they will wiggle their way out. So they will say, when do you want to write a book? He said, yeah, I'm busy. My kids are going to college and they will tell so many things, but they won't say an exact date.

Yeah, no, I agree with you because like you said, people are afraid to be kind of pointed at that they didn't achieve something.

Correct. So easiest way is I will work hard, somehow I will keep working. And then because I didn't set that exact date, even if I am failing, I won't know it.

I won't know this and nobody knows it because I haven't committed to it. So maybe.

What we should probably do is that goal should result in kind of in loss of something. So let's say the stakes are high. This plain stake is high. So what if, for example, you are telling me that I should write a book and I have to write a book. I have so much in my head. I hope somebody will one day read that. What if I said if I don't finish three chapters by the end of July, I'm going to stop eating ice cream for a whole month?

Yeah, that's a good.

Believe me, it will work because I'm losing something. If ice cream is your favorite thing to eat, if you say, anyway, I don't like ice cream, I will give up ice cream, then it's cheating.

Exactly. You know something, you know, if you talk to especially India, and I'm sure there is a part of the culture here also, that when they go to a highly spiritual city, they're supposed to give up what they like the most. Not like, I don't like mangoes, so let me give mangoes. So it is about overcoming your desire. So I think if people attach their goal to something that they really value, that they will not get it. If they don't achieve the goal, I think then they are more likely to be persistent. They are more likely to stay focused because they are going to lose something that they really love.

Yeah, that's one definite good idea. The other good idea is going back to your core expertise is mentoring, which I think plays a big role in being persistent because you have a mentor and you just, just confide with him or her, like, this is what I want to achieve. What happens in the next mentoring session? So the first thing the mentor will ask is, what have you done about it? So I find this in myself because when I talk to my mentors, let us say the call is on Sunday. On Saturday, however busy I am, I wake up. Like the demon in me wakes up and says, oh, my God, I have a call and I don't want to let my mentor down. I'll just try to catch up everything. So, like, Saturday will be the catch all situation. So that also helps.

Yeah. And I also want to kind of define some rules when to be persistent. Because if you just say be persistent. Okay, how do I know that when to be persistent? I think certain things that I've been telling entrepreneurs when I talk to them is, are you seeing traction in the marketplace? Are you kind of drinking your own Kool Aid? Or are other people who are completely neutral to this saying good things about your product? It's true with mentor Cloud. Personally, early on, I was drinking my own Kool Aid. I was saying, mentoring is going to change the world, everything. But very few people really got what it was. But now what keeps me persistent on this journey is when some unknown person hears the story and tells me, and not only tells me just to be nice, they're willing to pay you, they're willing to endorse you, they're going to put their name behind it. So when to be persistent, one of the key things, and I would like you to maybe do. Second one is are you getting the traction that you're expecting from people that are outside of you, outside of your core circle? Which is one good check mark to say. If that answer is yes in the last one week, last two weeks, last one month, then it's worth being persistent. What's the second one?

Very good point. In fact, I want to go to the philosophical aspect of it. See, you mentioned one thing in the beginning of the conversation, Rajesh. Just don't want to be randomly persistent, but intelligently persistent. Just make sure that you are doing it the right way. Not because I'm just banging my head to the wall for no reason kind of thing. How do you know that you are intellig persistent? One easy way for me is if you are growing in whatever you are doing, then it is the right way. But how do you know you are growing? Now that comes to the because it is very subjective, right? So if you are growing, you will increase your power. Now philosophical terms, what is power? Power is the capacity to get things done. So last year if it took you eight months to write a book, but if you are intelligently persistent and learning how to write a book this year the same book should take you six months similar book, that means you have increased your power. Second, that's internal external aspect of power is very simple. In your area of core expertise, are you getting high stakes requests from people that matter to you and people that are competent enough. That means suppose you are good at defining go to market strategies, how to take a product to market and somebody.

Asks you for help in that area, that means they are responding to what you know.

Exactly. Somebody who is already competent asks you for things that they could have solved it themselves, but they respect your opinion and they think you can add more value to them. So if you start watching, first is your own capacity to get things done. Second is you watch how the market is looking at you and do they feel that you can add value, but it has to be from competent. It can't be from your brother, sister, mother, all those people because they love you. But it has to be somebody competent. Who is saying, let me ask Bob, I think he is an expert in this. I would love to. Whether they pay, not pay, that's a different story. The request has to be high stakes. That shows that your persistence is paying off.

Correct. Because whatever area that you want to establish mastery, whether it is entrepreneurship or as an expert in a particular domain at work or you want to be a speaker, that means those efforts are paying off. Because high stakes requests will not come if those efforts were not going anywhere.

Right.

So let's recap. Being intelligently persistent is extremely important that you're seeing traction to your efforts. And one of the traction is getting those high stake requests and also the power to get more things done.

Correct. Exactly. So that's a good recap of what is persistent. I think this topic, we have to have one more conversation at some point in time because it's broad and then it can be easily misunderstood. Also that they are not going anywhere but they will say I am persistent and they go nowhere.

Exactly. In fact, maybe let's talk next time about when not to be persistent.

Yeah, that will be a good one.

Because sometimes when you define what is not, then what is becomes very obvious, very clear.

So to close it, do you have any final comments?

Yeah, I mean, I think as individuals, as human beings with big dreams, we have to be persistent on something. We cannot let the world fall in our lap. We have to be drivers. We have to be persistent to achieve something that we love, that we feel significant and that we feel kind of valued, that we have used our time, that God given time in a very productive way.

What that area is is kind of left to the audience.

Exactly. See my final comment. I want to tie it back to mentoring, which is suppose you feel that you make a self assessment and you feel that you should have been persistent, but you are not. And it is not a weakness to go to a mentor and say I need some help here. So they are there to help you and just hold you accountable and channel your energy so that if you are slipping away and then giving BS excuses and everything, they can tune you up and make sure that you are on the right path.

Absolutely. Well, really enjoyed the conversation on persistence. We have been persistent here because we are enjoying it. We are seeing good response from people. We are on to the fifth episode right now. So Rajesh, thank you very much. You can find more about Ravi and.

Mentor cloud@mentorcloud.com yeah, thanks again. This is Rajesh signing off and you can see more about me on my blog, Rajeshti.com blog.