Mondays are always extra special to me. Because it was a fine, hot Monday morning when an eleven year old kid… who had me in tears… taught me the biggest lesson I had learned in my life- EVER!
I want to share with you something that happened to me on 18th August, 2008. It was a Monday. A rather hot Monday morning… that was.
It was the time when my online business was finally kicking off… and I had my first taste of financial freedom. I had woken up at 4 A.M. in the morning to see what my PayPal account showed, and I realized I had made nearly seven hundred dollars while I was sleeping. Pretty cool, eh?
One can get used to that kind of feeling, right?
Well, even though I am thankful for all the money I make and all the bliss I am blessed with… it wasn’t that big of a deal to me… because I was already doing numbers like that. Nothing new… No new milestones had been reached. You know… getting on with your life and stuff.
I started working up right then and there… Creating a new marketing Campaign, and gearing up to create a new product in another niche that I had already selected. And got totally engrossed into creating it.
Now- please keep in mind it was 4 A.M… almost an hour and a half ahead of the dawn. And I was already working- like a mad scientist… like a crazy marketing stalker… and I know most people laugh at me when I do that today… but I have the last laugh (if you know what I mean 
)
==> Come Dawn, Lakshay doesn’t wake up still…
Hours went past me… and I didn’t even realize when it was dawn and everyone in my family was already up. In case you didn’t know- I am a 20 year old engineering student and I live with my family… parents and a little brother who happens to be the villain in my story (or was he a… what do you call… hero?)
==> Almost 8 AM
Sunlight filled my room… and it was getting pretty hot. I mean… SWEATY hot. (And no… keep it down you, nothing crazy happening…Whoa! Can’t you get your mind to focus on anything beyond that just for a moment…. duh! We’re supposed to have a business conversation here lol)… I was still at it. My marketing campaign that is.
The AC remote control was a little bit far away, so I’d have to get up and turn it on. And I was so totally engrossed in creating that campaign that I couldn’t possibly get up! You know- its like the full immersion HD movie that we watch sometimes. Or that deep, gossipy conversation with the old school buddy that you phone after years…. that kind of immersed.
And then walks in the *little devil*
Or shall I say… REAL DEVIL?
My brother, Sarthak, who was 11 at that time, hadn’t gone to school. He was feeling unwell and had a little stomach ache. Wearing his crazy red pajamas, the little soldier walks up to me, and tugs my arm.
I didn’t pay any attention.
He pulls me harder… This time he manages to get me to mistype…
I warned… “Sarthak!!!”
He says something to me in Hindi… “Bhai! Ek Minute Baat sunoge please?” (Brother, can you listen to me for a minute please?)
I was beginning to get annoyed…
“Wait a minute.”
He didn’t leave. Still clinging on to my arm.
“I mean I’ll talk to you after a while when I am free.”
I knew I was being rude… but I couldn’t let go of the computer… too many good ideas running through my head. So just then I decided to excite him while staying within the domain of what I had in my head… “Hey! Check this out. I made seven hundred last night… no wait… almost a grand by now. COOOOOLLLL!”
He said nothing. Somehow I felt like he wasn’t being happy. And I wanted to talk to him, heck I had been wanting to talk to him for quite a few days now… it’d been weeks since we played and spend time with each other… you know?
I said… “OK. What?”
“Brother, how much do you make every hour?”
I was SCHOCKED.
…OF ALL THINGS, he had to ask THIS? What the hell!!!
“Shut Up! Can’t you do the math? I made a grand in the last ten hours so that’ll be a hundred bucks an hour. Jesus!
… And now you get lost from here… I am crazy busy.”
You know, what he did?
==> He didn’t leave
He wouldn’t budge…
You could tell he had something on his mind. Something… kinda freaky. You can always tell… if he behaves strangely with me, you know he’s up to something and its mostly my fault”.
He shot back… “Please give me sixty dollars then, will you?” I could see it in his eyes… he really was longing for it.
But why the hell did he have to disturb me in the middle of my work? I was busy… and I have told him not to disturb him while I am busy. This holds true even today. And he always complied… well, except for this particular situation.
Now… I was not only annoyed, I could feel that I was losing touch with my original train of thought… one that I had going while creating the campaign… one that had me full of ideas.
I could feel I had lost ideas.
I could feel they were just slipping away… great ideas at that.
==> And now I was ANGRY.
I mean really, really angry. This little whacko couldn’t just go to Mom and ask for money? Couldn’t his urge for getting into his spending spree wait for an hour or two?
I yelled at him…
“Sarthak! GET LOST or I’ll kill you! You are a MORON! Have you no idea how difficult… Just get lost already.
AND DONT COME BACK”
Poor kid… I knew he was being dejected. But I couldn’t care less. He’d cost me all my ideas…. I had spent all morning getting them.
But a part of me wanted to apologize. I knew he was sad, and a part of my heart did not like the sight I had just seen. I knew things were wrong.
And then… within ten minutes I knew I had been harsh. Instead I should have just asked him what he needed the money for.
I realized that a little kid doesn’t know the value of money. And probably his happiness lies more in the little toy car he wants for himself than me making thousands. Heck… the kid hasn’t even started trying to figure out girls just yet.
And to top it all… he was unwell. Been having pains in his stomach all weekend. I AM A MORON!
I felt like crying… and I knew I was at fault here. So I just pulled out my wallet, and walked into his room.
==> He was CRYING.
I mean not “crying” crying. He wasn’t making noises. Instead… he was just sobbing. Tears were definitely there. He’s eleven… well… twelve now, and will not appreciate it if he knew I am telling you about this. So there you go..
I just sat next to him, and he immediately sat up. Looked at me. I couldn’t look into his eyes.
(By the way you might have realized by now that my little brother means A LOT to me. I mean A LOT. Like… more than everyone else.)
I said to him …
“Sorry. Here..”
And I handed out the sixty.
==> IMMEDIATELY
Immediately his eyes lit up. He was happy in a moment.
I mean… how easy it is to satisfy little kids. They are so full of life, aren’t they?
And just then, something happened that changed my life forever.
Something… that completely overthrew my thought process. That forced me to see the FAULT in my Internet Business.
Hi. I am Lakshay… An E-Business consultant and Info Product Marketer. I also love copywriting and specialze in that. I run several membership sites online providing content, services and products for online businesses and training and services for offline businesses. I also have quite a lot of offline business owners as my clients whom I have helped get online and also successfully reduce their advertising costs to one half while increasing the number of sales rapidly. And 99% of those people have just these words after they see what we could do for them.. \\\”Lakshay, I\\\’m speechless\\\”. Hi. I am Lakshay… An E-Business consultant and Info Product Marketer. I also love copywriting and specialze in that. I run several membership sites online providing content, services and products for online businesses and training and services for offline businesses. I also have quite a lot of offline business owners as my clients whom I have helped get online and also successfully reduce their advertising costs to one half while increasing the number of sales rapidly. And 99% of those people have just these words after they see what we could do for them.. “Lakshay, I’m speechless”. I’m not saying this brag and boast. In fact I can’t… Here’s why… Read more from this author
[...] http://lakshaybehl.com/a-little-bastard-had-me-in-tears-on-that-monday-part-1-of-2/time-management/ [...]