How I Fired My First Employee...#MirMak

How I Fired My First Employee...#MirMak

He was a young ambitious man. Full of dreams and aspirations. He wanted to make it big in his life but deep down inside he was afraid to take the risks. He wanted sureties in life but life offered none. His parents were the only support system for him while others put doubts in his minds about accomplishing what he wanted to accomplish. He was just 22 and was working for the world's largest financial services company at that time, The Prudential Financial Services. He was making a cozy salary plus commission on sales and at that tender age of 22, it was coming out to about $63,000 a year. A basic salary of $28,000 a year plus the rest in commissions. That was more than enough to support himself and give back to his parents. But it was not the money, it was his dream of working on Wall Street in the capital markets. But working in capital markets offered no salary. It was just a commission job.

And to let go off the comfort of a salary was extremely difficult and an enormously risky move as well. Some would even call it an outright madness to let go off a guaranteed salary in return for chasing a dream of making it big without any guarantees. He would think day and night about this. Every person he consulted told him not to make such a move. He was told repeatedly that such a good employment would never come again. He was getting more confused day by day. He went for a few interdepartmental interviews within The Prudential to move from Estate Planning Division where he was working at to stock brokerage division on Wall Street but again he was told there would be no salary. Wall Street, he was told is a place for people with an entrepreneurial mindset. For people who believe in themselves. For people who are not looking for a comfort of a salary but have the courage to earn according to their performance. Specially in the field of stock brokerage.

Wall Street in today's terminology would be an incubation center where people were the startups and their courage was their product, their belief in themselves was their marketing department, their self discipline was the administration department, and working 18 hours a day would be their revenue model. This sounded more like an entrepreneurial journey than an employment. But Wall Street he thought was all about just walking in the first day and making millions the next day. Reality was different. Absolutely different. It was not about a cozy environment. It was not about having doubts about yourself. It was the survival of the fittest. It was like swimming with the sharks. It was like starting his own business. And to start his own business at the age of 22 leaving the comfort of a huge salary was nothing but a disastrous move in the eyes of many.
He needed to decide to either be an entrepreneur without any guarantees of the future or to be an employee with the guarantee of a salary but with the death of his dreams. He realized that he could only learn to swim by jumping into the pool. He realized that he would have to fire the employee within him who wants guarantees. He realized that until the FIRST EMPLOYEE within him, himself, is not fired he could never pursue his dreams. That first employee was Mir Mohammad Alikhan and Mir Mohammad Alikhan fired him without thinking twice. And that was the best move he ever made in his life.