Welcome to the last video of The Startup Course.

We have covered pretty much every aspect of

the ideation, validation, building MVPs, raising money, scaling up your team, revenue and
marketing.

But there is something very important that we have missed talking about. YOU

After all, you will be captain of the ship and it’s crucial that you are grounded, focused, centred
and stress-free. If you ignore taking care of yourself you will risk burning yourself out along with
the ship.

For you to be centred and focused it is extremely important that you develop self-awareness
and emotional intelligence.

Self-Awareness and Emotional intelligence

As an entrepreneur, you deal with a lot of people on an everyday basis – your co-founders, your
employees, vendors, investors, customers and many others. But the most important person you
must deal with is ​yourself​.

That’s right. If you want to grow yourself as an entrepreneur, or as an individual in general, you
need to develop ​self-awareness​. It is a conscious understanding of ​who​ you are, ​what​ you’re
feeling, and ​why​ you’re feeling that way.

In the very first video, we spoke about how important your ​mindset​ is. And the first step towards
developing a healthy mindset comes from developing self-awareness, which in turn ​will​ improve
your ​emotional intelligence​.

When you develop self-awareness, you tend to understand not only your own emotions but also
how they impact yours ​and​ others' performance.

You tend to look at yourself from a broader perspective about how you’re feeling and how that’s
helping ​or​ hurting what you’re trying to do.

You also develop an acute sense of your strengths and weaknesses, which then gives you the
right mix of self-confidence and vulnerability. This helps you get a deeper understanding of your
values and purpose, which then helps you take decisive action.

But how do you ​achieve​ self-awareness?

Well, ​first​ you need to understand there is no ​end​ to it; it's a continuous process.
You can never be truly self-aware, and that’s fine. Start by having conversations with yourself; in
other words, try meditation.

This will allow you to resolve internal conflicts and reflect on what you’re feeling. Building
emotional intelligence helps you react to things more positively, embrace change, and be
accommodative of others' feelings.

To help you continually develop self-awareness, I have another tool for you - habits.

Building Habits

Have you ever felt like ​not​ getting out of bed and showing up to work because you’re not feeling
motivated enough? It could be the same with going to the gym, learning a new skill, and even
building a business.

In such situations, many of us try to motivate ourselves to get going. It works, but it's usually
short-lived. That's because motivation is a fleeting emotion over which you have no control. It
comes to you when it wants to and can disappear without notice. And then you’re back to
square one. A slightly better way to approach getting something done is ​discipline​.

Discipline will make you show up when you don't feel like it and do things that you never thought
you would do. There’s a reason why an army swears by discipline; it's what keeps them
together, and it's what keeps them alive.

But discipline is not easy to develop.

It requires tremendous amounts of will power. And willpower, although renewable, can be
limited.

Besides, you need the willpower to accomplish quite a few things in the space of a day. You
can't be spreading yourself too thin when it comes to willpower. You should use it in the right
place in the right way. That's where habits come into the picture.

The best thing about habits is that they require just enough discipline to form a particular
behaviour. And once this is formed, the behaviour becomes automatic. And once ​that​ happens,
you won't need to invest your willpower to activate that behaviour because it will have become a
habit.

This will allow you to have ​more​ willpower, which you can then invest in accomplishing more
challenging tasks.
To build habits, you need to start with a simple habit.

They say it takes, on average, 66 days to form a habit. So, you need to discipline yourself only
for those 66 days before the behaviour becomes automatic. Once you have formed a simple
habit, like waking up at 6 o’clock each morning, you can start stacking habits on top of that one.

This is called Habit Stacking: Your ​existing​ habit acts as a trigger for your ​new​ habit.

Mind you, you can successfully stack habits only sequentially and not in parallel.

Speaking of habits, it is also essential that you get rid of bad habits that can get in the way of
your productivity. Just like the good habits, you’re trying to build; bad habits have triggers too.

It’s important to be able to identify and understand the trigger. You should be able to replace a
bad habit with better habits and become more productive.

Let’s talk about productivity, shall we?

Improving Productivity

Regardless of who you are - rich or poor, young or old, entrepreneur or not - you only have 24
hours in a day. How you ​use​ those 24 hours defines you and your success as an entrepreneur.

Which is what productivity is all about. How efficiently can you use the time you have at your
disposal to accomplish as many things as possible?

The key to having a productive day is ​prioritizing​. What are the tasks that will give you the most
output?

There is no objective way to determine this, so you need to develop the ability to identify priority
tasks. Once you’ve done this, you need to front-load your work. Which means you need to
prioritize that task and finish it first in any given day or week. This will give you more headspace
to focus on other tasks.

A big mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make is multitasking. As human beings, we are not
designed​ for multitasking, and there is no glory in being able to do so. When you multitask, you
reduce your efficiency ​and​ your performance because your brain can focus on only one thing at
a time.

So, focus on finishing one task and ​then​ move on to the next one.
This will make you more efficient in ​all​ your tasks because it gives you a sense of flow and
doing deep work, which produces fantastic results.

You’re in the flow when you’re actively engaged in a task and lose all sense of time. With this
kind of deep work, not only will the quality of your work improve you will also start getting things
done one after the other.

If you’re trying to get ​into​ that flow, it’s important that you remove any and every kind of
distraction around you.

Turn off those notifications, ​don't​ check your email and social media every 5 minutes, and ​don't
attend meetings with no clear agenda.

But then again, you ​will​ have to check your email and attend meetings at some point, right? A
great way to tackle this is to block your time and guard it fiercely. Block a length of time for deep
work and reserve another block of time for all other tasks like meetings and responding to
emails.

Having said that, you ​still​ need a system that you can trust to produce results and complete
your tasks consistently. You can't have it all running in your head, so you need to start ​writing
down​ your tasks. As David Allen says,

"Your mind is for ​having​ ideas, not keeping them."

When you’re writing things down, pause for a second and see if a task can be done in 2
minutes. If yes, then do it right away. You’ll be surprised to see how many of your tasks take just
2 minutes to do. List down all the other tasks that need more time or have other dependencies.

Once you’ve made a list of tasks, you need to understand that each of these tasks is made up
of smaller tasks. Every time you have a task at hand, treat it like a project and break down the
tasks into simpler and smaller tasks. This will make the tasks seem less intimidating and let you
focus on the ​input​ rather than the output.

To make sure things get done on time, have deadlines and reminders for every task. Put
everything into a calendar. Every task ​should​ be time-bound, and you ​must ​ensure that it's
completed ​within​ the specified time.

To ensure that you’re getting things done ​on time​, keep track of your projects and review them
regularly. There are plenty of productivity tools out there that can help you with this. Or, you can
get started with the humble Excel sheet.
And before you know it, you’ll be getting a lot of things done – on time!

Now let’s talk about your Physical & Mental Health

At the end of the day, your systems, processes, and habits won't work if you don't have a strong
mind. A strong mind is one that is calm yet sharp and devoid of the stress and anxiety that are
accompanied by uncertainties.

A strong mind allows you to take swift yet decisive action. Like I said before, a good place to
start building a strong mind is through meditation. But another often overlooked place to start
building a strong mind is ​physical exercise​.

Physical exercise will not only keep your body healthy, but it will also keep your ​mind​ healthy.
Here’s how.

Our brain has a hormone called ​serotonin​, which controls our moods and emotions.

Physical activity ​directly​ affects serotonin production, which in turn impacts your performance.
Besides, having a physical exercise routine can help you have better posture, a healthy heart
and a well-functioning body as a whole. We only have one body, and we need to take care of it
really well.

One thing a lot of people ignore is sleep. It has been proved many, ​many​ times that you grow
both physically and mentally when you sleep. It's not just about how ​long​ you sleep but also the
quality​ of sleep you get. Having a consistent sleep routine will help you get a good night's rest,
followed by an amazingly productive day.

I know this sounds counter-productive, but you need to run at 100% capacity every single day,
and for that, you need to sleep well. Sleep allows you to rejuvenate and come back 100% fit day
after day.

Also, keep an eye on what you’re ​eating​. Most of the food that busy people eat is not healthy.
And this has a massive impact not just on our physical health but also our mental health.

It can be hard for some people to maintain a strict diet, especially if you’re an entrepreneur. A
simple trick for this can be that instead of trying to ​avoid​ certain things, make sure you definitely
eat foods that are good for you. This not only will allow you to eat a balanced diet but keep you
full and ​stop​ you from eating junk food.

All these things might seem a little unnecessary, but if you don't take care of yourself, you’ll burn
out sooner than you think.
Having a self-care routine is crucial when it comes to performing consistently in the long term. If
you can't care for yourself, you won't be in a position to care for others. Which brings us to the
next point…

…Leadership

All the things you do as an investment in yourself will not just make you a great entrepreneur but
a great ​leader​.

A leader is someone who has amazing clarity about what they want from themselves and from
others too. They have a long-term vision for their company, which shapes the way the company
is built. Strong leaders are able to articulate their thoughts and communicate them clearly to
everyone. Leaders are supportive of others and share success with everyone involved. Most
importantly, they are persistent. Thanks to their self-awareness, they’re learning all the time and
continuously developing themselves.

Notice how I spoke about being a great ​leader​ and not a great boss or a great manager? That's
because you ​should​ aim to become a ​leader​ and not a boss because a leader leads a team
and a boss issues commands to a team. A boss operates by deploying fear, while a leader
inspires with trust and transparency. A boss gains respect due to his authority or seniority, but a
leader earns respect for himself by his conduct, goodwill, and quality of character.

So, choose wisely what you want to be and how your actions will impact others around you. It all
starts with personal growth.

And if you follow these suggestions, you’ll be off to a great start.

With that, we have come to the end of The Startup Course. Remember, the journey of a startup
is never in a straight line. Sometimes you have to take a step back to take two steps forward
and it’s absolutely fine. And while doing it, it’s important you have a lot of fun and turn yourself
into a better entrepreneur.

I really hope I have helped in making your journey easier. I would love to hear your thoughts
about the course, about your startup journey and most importantly about yourself. Let me know
your thoughts in the comments section below.

Again, thank you so much for being a part of The Startup Course.

Over to you.