StartupTalky

Tag: ethics

  • What to Look for in a Startup Mentor?

    This article is contributed by multiple Startup founders from different fields.

    The journey of entrepreneurship is long and tiring, somehow or the other you may find a need to look for a mentor, who can play a vital role in the success of your business. They will help you in facing the different challenges, that will come forward in the entire process.  There are many successful entrepreneurs who actually mentor aspiring entrepreneurs but not everyone can be your mentor. So while looking for one, entrepreneurs must understand what they actually need.

    In this article, we will find out what to look for in a startup mentor. Some of the successful entrepreneurs shared their views on this topic. Let’s take a look.

    Manav Shah  | Founder, Eduvacancy

    I would personally tell everyone who is looking for a mentor to network. Keep networking and building your connections. On the contrary, I would recommend young individuals to start building their connections from a very early age. The thing with networking is that you never really know who you would end up meeting. I would advise all young entrepreneurs to keep exploring and meeting different people from all walks of life. Not necessary you will find your mentor from the same industry or similar surroundings.

    Besides networking entrepreneurs should look for individuals who love taking up challenging tasks and overcoming those challenges. When you are picking your mentor also try evaluating what leadership skills you want to set in your organization. Accordingly, find a mentor who has been successful in creating a similar leadership skill set in their lives. Another suggestion I would like to give is to find a mentor who helps you build your network. Therefore in all when someone is looking for a mentor they need to evaluate how the mentor will advance their overall career.

    Kunal Ahirwar | CEO & Co-Founder, Earnvestt Technologies

    The most important quality in any mentor is availability and desire to help. I would recommend that anyone looking for mentorship needs to find people that invest in their growth journey both personally and professionally.

    Utkarsh Gupta | Managing Director, Ramagya Mart

    A mentor is not someone who has experiences and degrees medaled on their profile, or how much engagement or following they have on social media. For me, a mentor is someone that I can speak to for direction and decision-making when fear, uncertainty, and doubt looms.
    If you are looking for a mentor, do not start by keeping the cost of engagement in mind because ‘the best from the rest’ does not come cheap. What you should look for are:

    • How well your mentor understands your need and how well he summarizes it; it means they heard you well.
    • Look for energy, positivity, and the spark that clicks a chord with you. These are effects that bring positivity to an equation.
    • Pick a mentor who shares your values and ethics of business and a similar understanding of business success.

    Neha Indoria | Co-Founder, Boingg!

    You need to ask 4 questions when looking at someone to be your mentor :

    • Do you trust this person?
    • Will they be accessible to you?
    • Do they bring a new perspective to the table?
    • Are they addressing a specific gap with their knowledge?

    Pallavi Utagi | Founder & Mom-in Chief, SuperBottoms

    • Have mentors across age groups and walks of life.
    • Communicate clearly that you are seeking mentorship. Sometimes people
      tend to idolise someone from a distance and don’t muster the courage to let
      the person knows that they are seeking mentorship.
    • Have a professional mentor, who is outside of your organisation for
      complete objectivity.

    Ritesh Ujjwal | CEO & Co-Founder, Kofluence

    I feel, in the Indian context, mentorship is still largely under leveraged which may be due to cultural reasons. I would strongly recommend for everyone to seek mentors from their immediate circle or extended circle, to begin with if you’ve not yet got one. Once, you’ve been nurtured by the initial set of mentors during the initial part of your career, then you should up the game by seeking mentors who have gone through the journey earlier.

    Conclusion

    While looking for the ideal mentor for you and your business, you need to first decipher what you qualities you actually need in your mentor, then only you can find the perfect one for yourself. Amidst thousands of people, they will not only help you in developing your skills but also provide the support and confidence, when you need some.

  • How Being Spiritual can Help You in Your Entrepreneurial Journey?

    This article is contributed by Ms. Deepti Sehgal, Founder, Svarasya.

    When you start the journey of entrepreneurship, apart from having all the knowledge related to business, one also needs some other things as well, mental peace is amongst one of them, through which difficult decision can be made. One needs to have that while embarking on this journey. To understand and achieve that one needs to learn about spirituality.

    Steve Jobs, a visionary and the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. is seen as an ideal in the entrepreneurial world. However, more than Steve’s entrepreneurial journey, his love, and the quest for spirituality seek a bigger share of attention. The world knows how deeply he was inspired by the ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahansa Yogananda, so much so, that his last message for the world stated ‘Actualize Yourself‘!’ Steve Jobs is a perfect example of bringing in the power of spirituality and intuition in the business for indomitable success. In this article, we will learn about how spirituality can help in your entrepreneurial journey. So, let’s get started.

    Spirituality & Entrepreneurship

    Most often behind a successful business, there is a vision so great and powerful, to manifest the non-existent and unseen in the physical world. The vision and courage of a visionary to build a successful business is often a journey of manifestation of one’s own beliefs and unshakable trust in something that has the power to manifest.

    The subtle energy or that spiritual angle in a successful business is often overlooked in the midst of tangible parameters that define the success of a business. However, spirituality makes its presence felt in form of a fabric of intuition or a strong belief or a vision or a strong value system of the visionary knitted in a successful business model, which is an inherently deep-rooted aspect of one’s spiritual connection. Thus, spirituality and entrepreneurship often are two sides of the same coin with entrepreneurship leading the game and spirituality backing it with a subtle force to manifest.

    On the material front, entrepreneurship can be a turbulent journey of success and failure, learnings and experiences and of personal growth, teaching bigger lessons of life. While sailing through the journey of entrepreneurship, the visionary must possess certain virtues to sustain the unpredictable and turbulent twists and turns of entrepreneurship. During critical times, taking mindful decisions while looking at the bigger picture need certain virtues that need to be developed. which reflects the inner strength of the visionary. Having a spiritual mindset and developing virtues like keeping calm, being patient, believing in self, going by intuition, listening to the heart, visualizing the outcomes of permutations and combinations of different scenarios, are a few traits that have, time and again proven true for many businesses during those times of critical decision making that may have the power to change the course of how a business manifests to its highest potential.

    Thus, the journey of entrepreneurship is also a journey of getting to know oneself, one’s own strength, to be able to lean back on inner resources and to make the most of that subtle energy that each one of us possesses. For a mindful entrepreneur, most of such virtues are developed along the entrepreneurial journey, yet having some tools for inner transformation may completely redefine the entrepreneurial experience of a visionary.

    Spiritual Traits to Apply in a Business

    As already mentioned above, both spiritualism and business are two sides of the same coin. It is needed to build up the business of your dream. So, some of the spiritual traits one can apply are:

    Trusting Intuition

    The courage to build an empire may be driven at the back by the inherent power of intuition and belief in something that has the power to manifest. Those who have the potential, but lack the courage to manifest may have a dormant intuition and may fear taking chances. However, to progress, it is important to get out of the comfort zone, and trust in one’s own abilities and some confidence. Success, be it personal or on the business front, is always a phenomenon driven from a space of inner vision, thus trusting intuition can be a strong guiding force behind the growth of a successful business.

    Having an Intention

    The power of intuition can be mapped with a practical approach to manifestation by setting a clear intention. The intention could be synonymous with goal-setting in most cases. Small steps lead to greater results, small intentions, and achieving the goal-oriented milestones are a sure-shot way to keep progressing in any business. When an intention is fuelled with an un-doubtful trust factor, mystically things fall in place when the efforts put in are just right to manifest an intention into a tangible result.

    Having Compassion and Empathy

    A successful business is nothing more than the collective energy of a group of people coming together and having a role in manifesting the unseen. Thus, at the back of any business is tremendous human power that grows with a sense of compassion and empathy towards each other. Like the undisrupted and one-directional flow of droplets of water in a flowing river, the collective positive energies flowing in one direction do manifest into something phenomenal, that’s the universal law. Virtues of compassion and empathy knitted as value systems of any business model, create a web of positive energy that shows in the success of a business.

    Observing One’s Thoughts

    The mind can create a hell out of heaven, or a heaven out of hell. Observing the flow of thoughts and incorporating certain mind-managing tools that provide an outlet of unwanted thoughts can keep the mind free of unwanted fluctuations. Everyone knows how critical those times of decision-making can be, and the right frame of mind is all that one may need in the spur of the moment to change the course of how a business operates. It is now being proven in research, how spiritual tools such as journaling, meditation, sense of gratitude have the power to bring a shift in, how the neuroscience of an individual operates. Thoughts are energy, and wherever the attention goes the energy flows. Thus, working on letting the energy flow in the right direction may demand mindfully using mind tools to manage thoughts.

    Observing the Clues

    Most conscious and aware entrepreneurs are driven by the clues that the universe may be projecting in its own small ways in a particular situation. This subtle trait of trusting and believing in universal messages can sometimes be just the right thing one needs to do. Believing in the bigger power operating to make things work is still an unexplained yet much-existing mystic phenomenon that many entrepreneurs abide by, and this connection is only felt when one is deeply connected with one’s inner potential.

    Conclusion

    All these spiritual values and ethics will help in increasing your interest, profit, and even productivity of your business. It is not just about wanting to follow it, because it brings out profit for the business but it also provides mental peace at the end of the day.

    FAQ

    Is Spirituality in Workplace Appropriate for Business?

    It is one of the most effective tools to handle any kind of stress-related issues and any problems faced by the business.

    What is A Spiritual Entrepreneur?

    Spiritual entrepreneurs are those who want to serve and uplift others while doing their own job.

    How can Spirituality Help an Entrepreneur Succeed?

    Spirituality helps the entrepreneur to achieve great leadership qualities and become a better leader.