The day I met Ed Sheeran and Arijit Singh was… NEVER!!! And that’s exactly how some business and investing “truths” turn out… NEVER!!!
And that’s the point. Some things just don’t happen in life and especially in business. We’re sold glowing, sapphire bright stories of the perfect playlist, without the skipped tracks, bad remixes or microphone feedback.
Running a business is full of these little never happens. Let’s break a few down:
- Banks will always lend in your worst times because you’ve built such a good history. NEVER… Banks are in the business of lending not sympathy. The minute things wobble, the screws tighten — demanding more guarantees, higher charges and less flexibility. Banks only deal in proof, not promises. If you can’t show the money coming back, your past means nothing.
- Investing is a straight line up. NEVER… Markets rise, fall, stall and sometimes sprint the wrong way just to keep you humble.
- Partnerships stay the same. NEVER… They start with shared dreams and later clash with arguments over who worked longer, who sacrificed more, and who deserves the bigger slice. The usual partnership tussle over time, money and credit.
- The alphabet soup exists to make life simpler. NEVER… Pick your letters for the regulators – ATO, ASIC, ACCC, APRA, etc and the outcome’s the same: Simple for them, never for you. With each announcement of “cutting red tape,” the fine print gets longer, not shorter. If simplicity were the goal, we wouldn’t need a webinar, a 40 page guide and a helpline that never picks up.
- Business is stress free once you’ve “made it.” NEVER… Success doesn’t remove problems, it upgrades them to bigger bills, bigger risks and bigger headaches with more zeros attached. The stress doesn’t vanish but just shows up in luxury packaging.
The truth? The day I met Ed and Arijit never happened and neither did the fairytale version of business and investing.
In this world, the only thing that consistently shines sapphire bright… is the reality check. Not quite chaam chaam cham sitare wargi we were promised, but close enough…
Category: NEXT ZERO