This week I met an old brother of mine after 4 years.
He was in town for a layover before he head to Himalayas for his (as per him) much needed vacation. I don't think fat people shall go to Himlayas tho but yeah, I trust he won't listen, again. (like always)
How did I meet him?
Back in days of Stories Worth Sharing, I onboarded him to do sessions for us in Bhopal. He is 2 years younger to me. He was in his late teens when we first interacted. Cut short to a year of working together, he was now leading entire state of MP and eventually, entire central & western India for Stories Worth Sharing.
A young teenager moved to early twenties working with me. Boy, he come with great execution. After SWS, we stayed together for a brief period working on 'what next'. Most of our time was spent working and playing games online (sick, yeah! Two men in their early 20s 'wasting' time playing ludo XD)
Okay, what next?
As we sat for the lunch this week, it was pleasant to hear where he is now and how grateful he is to the years he spent working with me. Today, he works with a unicorn company started by an ex-boss of mine. (Talk about small world!)
One of the common points we agreed on from our previous years was 'Ethical Aggression'. We both were not acquainted with what corporates teach or MBA schools push down their grads. We were just driven by psychology, instinct and our understanding of the world.
I'll tell you two stories.
One, 'Shift the session'
We announced a session in a city (circa 2018). Some other community had session on the same date (we were not aware of this)
They emailed asking to shift the dates for they were local only to that city and our session on same day would kill their reach.
"Principles, my friend!" we thought and refused to consider the request.
Did we do it to kill their reach? No.
Did we know of their schedule? No.
Shall we pay heed to the request? No.
They had to shift their date and eventually could not scale. They left it midway to do better things in life.
Moral: Aggressive but ethical. Ethical aggression
Second story, 'we have no venue!'
In another city, our venue partner revoked the permissions at the last moment. I used to work a job fresh out of college in Delhi while running SWS on the side. I couldn't take calls from the team and the moment I left office in Hauz Khas, I was stumped at number of calls my phone had seen.
I dialed back to find myself on a conference call. "Okay, sounds serious"
I heard the matter and here's what we did
- I put one of us to pacify the owner and understand what exactly happened
- I put another to scout for other venue. Speak to property owners or find an open space, anything. (with some black hat tricks on how to convince)
In just a matter of 40 minutes, we had 3 other properties willing to host us. Our first partner wrote an apology and gave us extra discounts to not go to other 3.
Again, aggression but ethical. It was essential to be ethical to first partner. He deserved a chance to be heard, in my opinion. But he has already cancelled and we can't wait to run single conversation.
Ethical Aggression, again.
Mind you, I was barely 22 and this guy was 20. We were fearless and we rules the storytelling space in this country, our way. What we decided on our calls were new unwritten rules in this space and how we conducted our sessions was a benchmark.
What's the need to tell this story now?
One, being young, aggressive and ethical will take you years ahead of your peers
Two, bass aise hi. yaad aagayi thi ye baat bhai se baat karke aur blog likhna hi tha toh suna di kahani. enjoy karo na yaar!