Read Online The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions by Gurbaksh Chahal - Free Book Online
Authors: Gurbaksh Chahal
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Nirmal said.
“I don’t know if it’s easy,” I said. “But it’s a lot more fun than school.”
“Maybe you should hire your brother to work for you,” my father said.
“I like school,” Taj said. He really did. His grade point average never fell below 4.0.
“You’ll become an engineer,” my father told Taj. “And you’ll make fifty or sixty thousand a year. But if you go to work for your little brother, you could become a rich man.”
“I’ll work for you,” Nirmal said. “I don’t like school either.”
“You
are staying in school,” my father said.
Nirmal looked over at me, frowning. I felt bad for her. I don’t want to create the impression that I think school is a bad idea, but it’s not for everyone. There are times, certainly, when I wish I spoke fluent French, or Spanish, and I wouldn’t mind being able to tell a Cézanne from a Monet, but I’m far more interested in business.
And I’m not interested in business school either, by the way. Everything I know about business I learned as I made my way along, and I’m still learning. I’ve also learned that the biggest lessons came from my biggest mistakes.
In the days and weeks ahead, freed from school, I felt the adrenaline rush of creating a business from scratch, and I was monomaniacal about it. I wanted to be the best, and I wanted to do it fast. Patience may well be a virtue, but impatience has always worked better for me.
By June, less than three months since I’d dropped out of school, I had achieved revenues approaching $300,000 a month.
If you genuinely want something, don’t wait for it—teach yourself to be impatient.
As you might expect from a newly well off kid, I decided it was time to buy my dream car, a Lexus GS400. I took my father and brother with me to the dealership, and there we were, three men in turbans, kicking tires.
I sat inside the car and smelled the new car smell, inhaling it.
“Are there any features this car doesn’t have?” I asked.
“No,” the salesman replied. “This car is fully loaded.”
He was right. There was nothing I could add. It was perfect. I paid for it—$58,000 in cash—and a couple of hours later I drove it off the lot and headed home. My brother was in the seat next to me. My father followed in his Honda. I made a mental note to myself to buy my father a new car when the time was right. I thought he might like a Lexus, too.
By the end of that year, I decided I needed a real office, so one weekend I asked my brother to help me and we went off to look around. I was actually looking for the cheapest, smallest place I could find, because I didn’t want to sign the standard five- or seven-year lease. We got lucky and found a tiny space in a very classy building. Ironically, this was the same building where my father had worked as a security guard, right after he arrived in the country, and I asked him to come and have a look at the place too.
“This brings back a lot of memories,” he said, “not all of them good.”
But he approved of the space. And I took it. And my brother signed the lease on my behalf. It was a little nerve- racking, though. Five thousand a month was a big-ticket item—more than my father’s monthly paycheck. I had money in the bank, certainly, but I was always thinking about the worst-case scenario. It’s not that I was pessimistic—on the contrary, I genuinely believed in myself—but I was cautious to a fault. I wanted to be ready for that rainy day because I knew that rainy days visited us all.
When I told Taj I wanted him to come work for me, he had his doubts. “How do I know you’re going to succeed?” he asked.
“You don’t,” I said. “But
I
know. And that’s all that matters.”
I had big dreams. I expected greatness from myself. And, most important, I believed in myself.
The following week, Taj and I raced around town buying furniture. Again I was Mr. McFrugal. I got used, run-of-the-mill stuff from various places, and I
“I don’t know if it’s easy,” I said. “But it’s a lot more fun than school.”
“Maybe you should hire your brother to work for you,” my father said.
“I like school,” Taj said. He really did. His grade point average never fell below 4.0.
“You’ll become an engineer,” my father told Taj. “And you’ll make fifty or sixty thousand a year. But if you go to work for your little brother, you could become a rich man.”
“I’ll work for you,” Nirmal said. “I don’t like school either.”
“You
are staying in school,” my father said.
Nirmal looked over at me, frowning. I felt bad for her. I don’t want to create the impression that I think school is a bad idea, but it’s not for everyone. There are times, certainly, when I wish I spoke fluent French, or Spanish, and I wouldn’t mind being able to tell a Cézanne from a Monet, but I’m far more interested in business.
And I’m not interested in business school either, by the way. Everything I know about business I learned as I made my way along, and I’m still learning. I’ve also learned that the biggest lessons came from my biggest mistakes.
In the days and weeks ahead, freed from school, I felt the adrenaline rush of creating a business from scratch, and I was monomaniacal about it. I wanted to be the best, and I wanted to do it fast. Patience may well be a virtue, but impatience has always worked better for me.
By June, less than three months since I’d dropped out of school, I had achieved revenues approaching $300,000 a month.
If you genuinely want something, don’t wait for it—teach yourself to be impatient.
As you might expect from a newly well off kid, I decided it was time to buy my dream car, a Lexus GS400. I took my father and brother with me to the dealership, and there we were, three men in turbans, kicking tires.
I sat inside the car and smelled the new car smell, inhaling it.
“Are there any features this car doesn’t have?” I asked.
“No,” the salesman replied. “This car is fully loaded.”
He was right. There was nothing I could add. It was perfect. I paid for it—$58,000 in cash—and a couple of hours later I drove it off the lot and headed home. My brother was in the seat next to me. My father followed in his Honda. I made a mental note to myself to buy my father a new car when the time was right. I thought he might like a Lexus, too.
By the end of that year, I decided I needed a real office, so one weekend I asked my brother to help me and we went off to look around. I was actually looking for the cheapest, smallest place I could find, because I didn’t want to sign the standard five- or seven-year lease. We got lucky and found a tiny space in a very classy building. Ironically, this was the same building where my father had worked as a security guard, right after he arrived in the country, and I asked him to come and have a look at the place too.
“This brings back a lot of memories,” he said, “not all of them good.”
But he approved of the space. And I took it. And my brother signed the lease on my behalf. It was a little nerve- racking, though. Five thousand a month was a big-ticket item—more than my father’s monthly paycheck. I had money in the bank, certainly, but I was always thinking about the worst-case scenario. It’s not that I was pessimistic—on the contrary, I genuinely believed in myself—but I was cautious to a fault. I wanted to be ready for that rainy day because I knew that rainy days visited us all.
When I told Taj I wanted him to come work for me, he had his doubts. “How do I know you’re going to succeed?” he asked.
“You don’t,” I said. “But
I
know. And that’s all that matters.”
I had big dreams. I expected greatness from myself. And, most important, I believed in myself.
The following week, Taj and I raced around town buying furniture. Again I was Mr. McFrugal. I got used, run-of-the-mill stuff from various places, and I
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