No meat, No alcohol, and Growing a Business
It’s been 5 months of no alcohol and 5 days of no meat. They are both conscious decisions, with no idea of the implications they will have on my mind. The former was easier. I just had to give myself a time and date, and a few days of mental prep, I was able to give up alcohol completely. This could also be because of the fear I possessed of doing and (worse) thinking unimaginable things, especially while in my Valley of Disappointment. There was no way I was ready to take refuge in beers, cocktails or bottles of wine anymore. So this came easy, and of course not as easy to sustain but have only been proud of being able to stick to it, despite all the temptations with new joints opening and travel resuming!
The 5 days of no meat till now has been an ‘almost die’ situation. I’ve thought of it a lot many times, but never been able to get to it. I won’t count the time we went veg as a family back in my school time — I did not have access to buying meat and cooking it even. Won’t count the one month of no meat challenge I accepted from my brother back in 2011. Was back at hogging big time post that, despite seeing some amazing changes with my belly going in.
I am not fat, forget being obese and have been working out for over a decade now. So eating anything and everything seemed to be a privilege always. Until realisation struck of how food was coming in the way of a lot of my decisions, work and life overall.
What I chose to do here though, was carry out a Process of Elimination. Because these decisions are hard, especially for a foodie like me who makes friends and travels far and wide, keeping food as main incentive. This process of elimination helped me especially with the meat being out of stock always at home. Could not do that with alcohol as others in the family are yet to follow suit, but strangely enough it never tempted me. Only the urge was at its highest on my lowest days ever, and controlling myself or rather distracting myself was the best gift I’ve managed giving myself. The idea of elimination comes naturally to me as I think of it. As a writer, its easy for me to edit others and my work too. In my earlier stance as a manger, I was able to perform faster through elimination process than building something new.
And that is where the paradox of building a business comes in, which I am still trying to figure out. My content development company is doing fine, but to be able to build it beyond myself — align people with it, processes, add more clients to it — has been quite a challenge. And that is because an entire shift has to happen from elimination coming naturally to me, to building and creating coming naturally to me. The only things I create from scratch are ideas, even in my current role of an entrepreneur. The execution is something I’m yet to excel at. The fact that I am aware of what has worked for me, and the gap between what will work for me, is a great achievement in its own self.
I intend to apply it and take it a step forward. Moving from elimination to building what I want out of this business, is going to be my test. Along with sustaining the no meat, no alcohol life I live. Starting with creating a kickass team, and a great office space, I believe Tuesdays Corp is going to be wonderful in the next few months!