Mar 7, 2013

# Accepting myself as a Woman Entrepreneur!


I have been asked by many to write down my learnings as a woman entrepreneur. Honestly, I will be lying if I say, it has been easy.
If I go into details of my journey of last 4.5 years, you might call me a bit cynical, prone to exaggeration and crazy. So let me not go into that now (though one day the pandora box will open and I will share my story). What I am sharing with you now are some fun experiences of being a woman and an entrepreneur :) and some questions that stay with me.
1. I have always wondered sitting next to a successful male entrepreneur in a panel or event, when the entrepreneur says, I had to sell my wife’s jewellery to pay salary (to thunderous applause from an audience that comprise 99 percent male audience), what can be my heart rendering sale story? I don’t have any gold and my husband definitely did not sell anything ;)
2. But before the wife comes the mother and her dreams, concerns, worries and unconditional love for her son cum entrepreneur. But for me and many like me – the Indian mother’s worries compound to the power of x when they hear their daughter is starting up. For my mother, the regular rhetoric was – be a good wife and don’t get mad, otherwise you will end up alone and miserable :)
3. Starting up and Marriage – While articles around this topic have a tendency to go viral – who will marry a startup guy etc etc, I wonder what happens to a girl starting up or a woman entrepreneur and her marriage? (Trust me creating and building anything remotely decent requires same amount of 24*7 effort from both the genders:))
4. A good woman – now this is a question I leave you to answer. If I ask you, who according to you is an ideal girl, woman? What would you say? The answer my friend is something for you to give yourself. Does a  24*7 driven, “obsessed with her startup”  girl come to your mind? But, for a great guy, if I say, he is a passionate, very driven entrepreneur, it does sound impressive right?
5. Its always the self-made man (raymonds knew it too:)), and if a woman makes it, then its always the community effort, why don’t we hear self made woman? Or do we?
I have always maintained that to see more women startup, we don’t need mind blowing efforts by government, accelerators,society, neither do we need money what we need is a mindset. A mindset to accept a woman as an equal. A mindset to push your mother, wife, sister, girlfriend to do what they want to do. To take pride in their success as they rejoice in every small accomplishment of yours.
Hopefully in years to come, we won’t need one day to celebrate a woman’s day as everyday we will learn to value and celebrate a woman!

# Written By Shradha Sharma is the Founder & Chief Editor of YourStory.in. Prior to starting YourStory, Shradha was one of the youngest Assistant Vice Presidents at CNBC TV18 and also, a Brand Adviser.
She is a true Motivator!!

Aug 25, 2012

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Feeling of nothingness overpowers
She stands at the altar and stares at her destiny
Detached and submissive 
drive her to become reclusive

She embraces no tears, no fears, no grudges, but hope
Strangely she avoids any refuge

She sees the reality of life as a lesson 
quietly accepts anything can happen

She meets the challenges of life with a brave heart
Happily accepting things that can tear her apart

Numb she is,
Love and hate have lost their meaning and existence
She now  finds comfort in Tranquility and silence 

No desires, No dreams 
but she knows who she is

Illusions disappear
Moments like these are rare

She finds blame game indecent
There is a wish to rise above from small  fights and depressing thoughts too frequent

As a human never sacrifice your own dreams
Don't be with someone who has lost its sheen

Doubts make an exit from her mind
Unsolved puzzles don't make her depressed
A rainy day though creates a need to be caressed

In Solitude she finds solace
So possessed by present, past and future have no place

She does not belong to anyone but the universe
Conspires and inspires 

She becomes a stranger to loneliness,
As winds of change transform her, inside out

Swims with the flow of the river
She believes that though Destiny is clever,
But she as a woman of substance, will go on smiling, working, hoping forver,
Come what may...



3 Cheers to Life,

Diksha, 
In solemn, sombre moments,smiling :) 








   


Jul 28, 2012

# Heartfelt


“Indeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our veins--of happiness and unhappiness”

And that was what I often felt the need of-to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself. When life sank down for a moment, the range of experience seemed limitless. 

Tired, but I have to write this. Today, every word I write counts.

A woman's heart is yours forever,
She will be true, to the one in her life,
If we don't give her love and affection,
Could be the biggest mistake, that a man can make.



We woman, when give away our hearts, its the most precious thing.
As I write this, tears flow. There are some incidents in Life which makes us feel 'this world is full of sorrow, pain & bad people', thank you God for giving us few moments of happiness...


I am with a close acquaintance- She is crying loudly, profusely. For a minute I thought she was just playing some prank- or- it was her crappy, nonsense arguments with her boyfriend. 


She was drunk. It made me a little angry. 
As we were driving through the busy road, I was sure nothing much was wrong. ( Deep within there was a fear...) 


It came true.


4 hours have passed. I feel numb. I feel bad about the thoughts I had few hours before.
I thought I was strong...She cried in front of me, howled and howled and howled. I wanted her to cry more so that her tears take away all the pain she went through.

For first time in my life- I could not make some one smile.

Love is just another dirty lie. Love always hangs up behind the bathroom door. It smells like lysol. To hell with love. All right.  I'm through with love.





Jul 10, 2012

This is it..

“I like to believe that you don't need to reach a certain goal to be happy. I prefer to think that happiness is always there, and that when things don't go the way we might like them to, it's a sign from above that something even better is right around the corner.” 

Jun 15, 2012

Wants to Run Away!

Want to run away, faraway to an unknown Island,
Far away from the crowd,
in the Lap of Nature...

Sep 12, 2011

'Interesting Conversations'

They make a definite change in the way we think, feel & imagine. In depth conversations have spellbound effect! They sometimes transform us and make us feel 'wow'!

Aug 22, 2011

Smile & Sunshine!

Last few days were awesome. I had a wonderful time and some real magical moments.
Life is beautiful right now and I am loving every bit of it!