His Own Boss and Employee
We frequently overlook patterns of change since they are typically spread over a hundred years or more, and the average human life span is approximately 70 years, minus 20 formative years in which people begin to know the world beyond their local environment and others in the family and community. However, as technology has revolutionized the globe, first with computers, then with the Internet, then with mobile phones, and finally with the Internet on mobiles, change has accelerated. It is now evident and unmistakable.
Ankit Agarwal, a friend of my younger son Amol for the past 15 years, just visited me. He is from Meerut, my hometown. Ankit and Amol previously worked together at Infosys and Oracle. Ankit left Oracle to pursue his interests, which were vastly different from entrepreneurship. He discovered some employment in Europe that he could accomplish from home using the Internet. He reasoned why he was living in Hyderabad and moved to Goa with his wife, where they found a coastal home for half the rent they were paying in Hyderabad. After 6 years, I saw him – fit and full of the confidence that comes from living a happy life.
He brought me two newly published books, one on Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the other on Swami Vivekananda. I asked him how he got his work done, and his response was thoughtful and insightful. “I can effectively balance time, money, and freedom, Uncle,” he said. “I am both my boss and my employee, generating decent money, and working no more than 40 hours per week in a flexible way determined by my degree of enjoyment rather than when to start and when to close.”
My father, who worked a 9-to-5 job for 30 years, would findthis ridiculous. Even the street dog recognized his rhythm and would leap around him in pleasure when he returned home from work in the evening. But even I was shocked becausethough I have retired from work, I continue to log 10 hours of reading and writing as if I were living in a monastery under the abbot’s supervision.
I have no doubts regarding the significance of earning money. Money is the backbone that supports everything that makes life good – education, a well–furnished house with 24×7 facilities, a car and gadgets, travel, and healthcare. Money leads to financial freedom; however, it rarely leads to time freedom. People neglect social functions and family obligations due to work and are unable to attend to their elderly parents or be present for parent-teacher meetings at their children’s schools. Ankit has attained financial independence as well as complete control over his time, which he spends on pursuits that bring him pleasure and happiness.
After Ankit left, I ordered Time Money Freedom, a book written by Ray and Jessica Higdon, which was published in 2020. While Ankit’s decision-making predated this book, reading it helped me better understand this new concept. An intriguing read, the book contains ten guidelines that the writers developed from their own lives and businesses to change one’s life to achieve its maximum potential. Though I don’t endorse it verbatim, it stimulates the reader to break free from the hypnosis of the status quo and complacency and live to improve one’s own and others’ conditions. Lethargy and procrastination are like weeds in a garden that, if not pruned, turn life into a jungle.
Individualism pervades the American way of life. There is heroism in the quest for happiness, power over others, and possession of resources, be it oil in the old days or knowledge in the new. The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged(1957) by Russian-born American writer Ayn Rand present the idea of man as a heroic being, with happiness as the moral goal of his life, creative success as his best action, and logic as his only ideal.
The introduction of computers provided an excellent chance for Indians to move to America. Few American kids were pursuing advanced education, and Indians filled that void most effectively. Since the 1970s and 1980s, when waves of Indian graduates flowed into Northern California’s Silicon Valley, exceptional Indians have produced breakthroughs, pushed boundaries, and held positions of power in the worlds of technology and media. Almost all major US technology businesses have technology pioneers of Indian heritage, including Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, Ajay Bhatt, the father of USB, and Vinod Dham, the father of the famed Intel Pentium processor.
The four major technology companies in the world –Microsoft (Satya Nadella), Google (Sundar Pichai), IBM(Arvind Krishna), and Adobe (Shantanu Narayen) – are led by Indian-origin engineers, and the incumbent World Bank Chief (Ajay Banga) and President Biden’s Chief Advisor for Scienceand Technology (Arati Prabhakar) testify to the individualistic streak of the American culture, where merit and competency trump all other factors. Unfortunately, engineers remain in the shadows of the Indian industry, which is dominated by powerful families and investors. Individualism is passionately practiced in India but is hidden beneath ideological jargon in which every leader claims to work for the poor and oppressed while living in prosperity and luxury. On a recent trip to Silicon Valley, my buddy Dr. S. Chinnababu met an American billionaire sitting alone in a coffee shop like a commoner.
So, what Ankit is doing appears to be the correct course of action. Job security is becoming less and less important with each passing year. People’s ways of communicating, conducting business, spending money, and earning money have all altered. Online food, grocery, and other goods delivery, as well as networked taxis, have resulted in a massive number of self-employed persons. They may not be their bosses in the same sense that Ankit is, but no one can boss them, and they can choose to go offline. Even street vendors are sourcing the goods they sell from worldwide supply chains and a variety of products. There are services that accept consumer orders for food, including fruits and vegetables, pick them up from local retail shops, and deliver them “instantly,” which means within 15 to 20 minutes. Allthese people are their own bosses and employees.
Blaming the system, exploiting employers, terrible bosses, bad leaders, inflation, and the stock market, while still widespread, is losing relevance and getting relegated to a hobby for idlers. Despite the flaws in the educational system, people who are dedicated and motivated are making progress in life. The only thing that will benefit you in the future is you and your ability to structure your life around honing abilities and working with discipline. What I learned from Ankit is a new technique to develop a dependable career – a way of life that puts you at the mercy of no one; employment that is flexible enough to provide you with the money, time, and independence you desire. God bless the next generation of Indians who will lead the new world.
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Very interesting insight into the emerging patterns of career, Prof Tiwariji !
Your advice on structuring life around honing abilities will go long way for the new generation of professionals !!
Self-employment can be a wonderful step to finding a fulfilling career, but it’s also not as easy as just setting out and deciding to change the world through your particular product or service.
However, one thing that always appeals a 9 to 5 employee is that being your own boss, all you have to do is raise your standards – and there’s no limit to what you can make. Your employer won’t limit your salary based on the market, industry or what others are being paid. And you keep every last cent of profit for yourself.
Courageous are people like Ankit who take such step.
Dear Sir, Thank you for an inspiring story of Ankit for youngsters to draw inspiration and chalk out their course. TIME, MONEY, and FREEDOM are both complementing and contradicting words when we practically look at them. Like if you invest time, you will get money and thereby you have economic freedom (pseudo one). On the other hand, In the pursuit of money, you spend so much time that you don’t have time and freedom.
Ankit’s story is very inspiring and he had the guts to get out of the regularly paying job and start something on his own. The very early realization has helped him to take the call and this also needs the backing of the family. One good thing that the present generation is blessed with is that their parents are not depending on them and if something doesn’t click they always have the fallback option and they can apply correction and experiment. This luxury was not there for the previous generation. We should count the technological advancements as a blessing and fully utilize the potential it offers to earn money and freedom with enough time to enjoy the fruits
These types of success stories are a big inspiration for the younger generation to decide on their life path. Let them enjoy and be their own bosses and employee.
Our generation spent their work life on the lines of BASHIR BADRA”s sher:
बे-वक़्त अगर जाऊंगा सब चौंक पड़ेंगे
इक उम्र हुई दिन में कभी घर नहीं देखा।
Everyone will be shocked if I go home early today. I have not been to my house during the day for ages.
But no regrets, that was the requirement of the time with very few options to choose from. The sword of uncertainty was hanging on our necks with fear of the unknown. I wish the younger generations all the best and they should leverage technology for the greater good of society and for their own TIME, MONEY, and FREEDOM. Thank you once again for an inspiring blog sir!
A cool and uplifting story sir!
The traditional way of living life (standard 9-5 job) and notions of success has been altered. Working on one’s own terns while maintaining the financial independence and control over their time, Ankit’s story is one such example. More and more people are embracing Individualism. Work-life balance is no more a myth, it can be toned to one’s own preferences by exploring career paths by honing abilities and working with discipline.
As usual, our amazing teacher has written an interesting blog! Management professionals are researching the important boundary conditions of the relationship between self-employment and well-being, particularly considering the COVID-19 epidemic. Self-employed people, for example, who are pushed into entrepreneurship owing to a lack of alternatives are referred to as “necessity entrepreneurs,” as opposed to those who start a business to capitalize on opportunities, who are referred to as “opportunity entrepreneurs.” As an opportunity entrepreneur, Ankit has a high level of job satisfaction and autonomy.
However, other crucial employment features, such as whether one’s job demands the management of others, can explain disparities in well-being between the self-employed and employed. I believe that self-employment does not enhance job satisfaction, and there are various other well-being consequences that are less well-studied. Work meaningfulness and autonomy are two characteristics of perceived well-being that have gotten little attention in the literature on self-employment and well-being. Work meaningfulness represents activities that people see as meaningful and worthwhile, and that offer them external appreciation and fulfillment.
Self-employment, as a self-directed and emotional journey defined by a strong sense of purpose, can lead to higher levels of job meaningfulness. Work that is meaningful is significant because it predicts outcomes such as absenteeism, intention to quit, and organizational commitment. Furthermore, it is an organically valuable component of people’s work lives and is critical to job creation and comprehending the advantages of various career paths. I am really thrilled for Ankit and look forward to seeing his tribe grow exponentially in the next few years around the world. Indians have a natural edge over others in this regard.
I would express my opinion in two parts:
First, thanks to the younger generation, the work-leisure balance has got a new definition. People in my age group (65+) hardly knew what relaxing meant. Kudos to this generation for finding out what ‘life’ is ALSO meant for.
Second, modern tools are to be exploited by one and all. It is for the social good apart from being beneficial to the individual. Let us see that these tools are available ( at a fair cost ) and exploited,
Once again, kudos to the new generation and those who have brought out the technological change.
Dear Sir, a very enjoyable blog with a profound message.
Working for yourself provides more job liberty and meaning than working for someone else. However, whether self-employed or employed persons have more autonomy and meaning in their work depends on whether they oversee others. Solo entrepreneurs have slightly more liberty but less meaning in their work than self-employed bosses.
Meanwhile, salaried employees with managerial responsibilities report higher degrees of job purpose and autonomy than colleagues without such responsibilities. From my experience, the well-being benefits of self-employment are dependent on whether self-employed or employed people manage others. It is the feeling that you are working on your own that is pristine and matters most. Thank you, Sir.
Working from home culture started with Covid made but even after the pandemic, as the lockdown had lifted, companies adopted a hybrid model wherein employees went to the office a few days a week and the other days worked from home. This saved companies the cost of renting a big office space and thus it had become mainstream. People also have become aware of technologies like Zoom calls, VPN, and Anydesk, and this has equipped them to work remotely.
My personal take is that working from home is a better option for knowledge workers. Weekly and even a fortnightly personal interaction suffice all that interpersonal bonhomie or knowledge exchange that is there. Commuting long hours in traffic and sitting in crowded, substandard workplaces, makes little sense for the quality of work. Of course, companies need an address to run a business and there are a lot of business maneuvers that still happen in the face-to-face world. Personally, Ankit is my role model and I wish to get some work from Europe.
Sir – I regularly read your blogs. It’s such an inspiration to discover the novelty in our surroundings, in our societies. I’m very much keen to know Ankit. I share a similar passion with him. If possible; please help to let us connect. Love and regards.
Striking the right balance between individual and societal obligations is the biggest problem our generation of people is facing. I am an HR & Sustainability professional, and my job involves talking to people aspiring for rewarding careers that include changing locations and disconnecting with their toots. The balance has clearly tilted towards the pursuit of happiness, which is seen as freedom.
Mr. Chandu Thota rightly quoted Thomas Jefferson and Nelson Mandela – as the two ideological poles. A good life is balancing the pursuit of happiness and taking care of one’s family and society. Individualism based on desires and penchants is harmful. We must structure our lives around both, rather than prioritizing one over the other. Thank you for initiating thoughtful discourse.
Individualism and familial obligations are powerful themes. Every older generation finds the younger one more independent and less concerned about the family. I find the comment of Mr. Chandu Thota is based on two great thinkers – Jefferson and Mandela – most balancing the two. A good life includes the pursuit of happiness but also taking care of one’s family, parents, wife, and children, and an obligation to one’s people, community, and country. Individualism driven by whims and fancies and indulging in merriment is no good. We must build our lives pursuing both and not choosing one over the other. Thank you for enlightening me.
Sir, Thank you for raising a very important question. While the story of Mr. Ankit is good, I am not sure if freedom means creating personal wealth and comfort. It is easy to lose patience with any violation of our own comfort in ordinary life. Maintaining a consistent state of contentment and shanti even under the most adverse of situations is far more challenging. Wishing for the betterment of others runs against the fundamental fabric of our hyper-competitive culture. I look forward to the day when our culture realizes that “in the joy of others, lies our own.”
The individualism that you touched on in your essay is very deep-rooted. The original text from “The Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson reads:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.
Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. That’s Ankit’s story in one line.
And then there is the other view that I was thinking of when I re-read “The Long Walk to Freedom” by Mandela.
The first is to his family, parents, wife, and children; the second obligation is to his people, his community, and his country.
I wish we had built that into our psyche (and structure) so that every human is given the opportunity to pursue both. And that they don’t have to choose one over the other.
Despite the flaws in the educational system, people who are dedicated and motivated are making progress in life. The only thing that will benefit you in the future is you and your ability to structure your life around honing abilities and working with discipline. You could not have said it better Prof Tiwari!
Very inspiring story. You’re setting your own hours. Being your own boss. Calling the shots in the workplace you’ve created. Sound appealing? These are some of the perks of being self-employed. However, self-employment isn’t without its challenges. While being able to call your own shots sounds glamorous, being your own boss takes hard work, dedication, and incredible focus — with no guarantee of pay, benefits, or success in your field.
In self-employment, an individual is responsible for managing and financing their own business, including all aspects of marketing, sales, and financial management. The path to self-employment is not one size fits all. Various options are available for creating self-governed work – Business Owner, Freelancer, and Contractor. As Ankit has proved, embarking on a self-employed career can be incredibly rewarding.
One of your best blogs to date!!
Congrats, Bhai Saab!
Deeper insights on modern workplaces!
Very nice story and message Prof. Tiwari.
Way to go Ankit! Living and working on the coast, full of happiness – enabled by technology. Many more, who understand the importance of balancing life, will follow Ankit’s lead for sure.
The future is bright for India! Excited to see it evolve.
Dear Sir, Greetings! Data science and AI are other areas where anyone can get expertise and become his own boss I believe. The new generation needs to understand the need for future technologies and train themself with the required skillsets. Regards,
The Indian culture, social pressures, mental blocks, etc still do not permit out-of-box thinking, nor does our education system. It served us well till a decade ago. But times are changing. New generation is at a crossroad to decide, or not decide, what to do. Its a very difficult choice. Most Indian young persons want to be in tech-zone which provides no job security. Imagine the trauma of a Indian guy in USA in tech who was suddenly laid off after 10 years working. Total desperate situation.
Pandemic and internet combined have opened new WFM vistas. Employees are resisting getting back to off-line mode. Recently I got some design work done on ‘Freelancer’ platform. The designer was a lady living in Canadian wilderness with a canoe being only means of approaching and bears visiting her once in a while. She seemed to be very happy.
Shape of things to come.
Ankit’s success will be an eye opener to many youngsters who are caught in the comfort of being in job without knowing what it means to be on your own – a Boss, Owner in full control of one’s own time. You have so subtly driven to the message to all ages too Sir and will share this with few of them who are looking to a different occupational engagement.
Dear Prof, Having done my public service, with all its merits, I am now self-employed just like Ankit.
I can confidently join in the lyrics … “There is nothing better than self-employment!”
Brave and rewarding!