Being a young student back when I was in India, a lot of conferences and event organisers, tried to hold my winning amount. They kept me on blue ticks and sometimes even said don’t disturb us. For asking my own winning amount, that they owe me. But I atleast had the will to fight always and i had a very tough spine. Every time I was able to get my money out easily. and Because of me some people got fired as well from well reputed position, because they tried to hoard my money out of greed or corruption. So I learnt it very early to fight for my own rights is the right thing to do when dealing with people like that. And in the last few years of course I have become even stronger, and more demanding.
I used to attend a lot of conferences and competitions as a student to learn and build my skills in the real world, grand scheme of things. So I won some, learned from others and kept learning.
I learnt these things from my experience dealing with people where money was involved:
- Be clear about expectations and deliverables from start – Applies to both the person delivering and the receiving side. Create every note of important terms agreed between both parties on emails and signed copies if required offline. Contracts or agreements with clear details mutually agree can help you a lot when the right time comes to fight back with evidence.
- Have a tough spine made of steel – This will help you remain in business, and you’ll become more reliable to people around you. When you’ll need your spine the most is during when you’ll fight back with people who are trying to make your life harder, by hoarding your money etc.
- Be demanding and assertive – Keep it very certain from start to the other person that who he is dealing with. You don’t need to be intimidating directly. Instead by indirectly intimidating – you can do this by showing them your profile, your connections, followers, skills, knowledge and previous achievements. Always helps in getting what you want and deserve without long back and forth or wasting time. The faster people you’re dealing with understand who you’re, the faster you’ll get the work done. Appear larger when you’re smaller and have the spine to fight back when the time comes.
I was reading a post by Gaurav Kawatra on Linkedin and I suddenly remembered my own journey. So I thought about sharing my own learnings from experiences I had.
One motto that I keep:
Train at 100% of your capacity, when no one’s watching. So you can survive at 10% when everyone is watching.
Aditya Gaurav
