A common saying from our childhood days ,will always remind us that we need to “Look before you leap”. This may look simpler than we can imagine. In the competitive world of today, where we want to ,out beat one another ,in minutes, rather than months or years, the need to jump into action ,may be irresistible.

The risk-return analysis ,may need time and we may imagine ,we do not have it. So, we tend to jump ,at every possible opportunity before we realise ,where we have landed ourselves in. In my book, there is space for every individual, in this world.

But some of us ,may not agree to this. We may believe that we are not running a marathon but a short distance race and hence we need to leap ,before we can even look. The risk of jumping before we look ,may be deeper ,than we could imagine.

Let me illustrate this point ,with some real life examples ,I have come across ,in my life. The first time I experienced this, was when the Y2K phenomenon hit the corporate world. Everyone believed that the world will come to a halt with the advent of Y2K ,since our computers were not designed for this transition and hence they need to do something about it.

Many dotcom companies spurned up in the late nineties and the best of talent from the corporate world, jumped into this bandwagon. They were enticed with swanky cars and huge salary packages. The Y2K ,did not shake the world as anticipated and thereby ,many of these dotcoms disappeared as fast ,as they came up. Thereby ,many of these talented employees lost their jobs ,along with their benefits. They had come to back to the real world and their real pay packages.

The next phenomenon ,was in the early part ,of this century. The IT and services industry ,boomed in India and the world. Many youngsters got posting in the developed world ,with great salary packages and ended up ,investing in multiple flats and other assets at home. This resulted in monthly EMIs to bank and lending institutions .when some of these people lost their jobs during the next recession, they had to sell their flats ,at below market prices and came crashing down to mother reality.

So ,the lessons of life are real. We need to look before we leap ,always. Today is the age of start ups, they appear even before the sun dawns in the east. Many of us at various stages of our career ,are jumping into this scenario. Some of them wind up ,even before the sun sets in the horizon.

The start ups provide a great environment to take risks and also experiment and try out new things. So, there may be nothing wrong to try out this way of working. But, we need to realise ,that the start up world is different from the rest of the corporate world, before we join them. They may start, grow and flourish and we may become millionaires. On the other hand, they may wind up ,even before they launch their product or service and hence we need to have the financial capability ,to survive this storm .

Life is the art of balancing risk and reward. We need to learn to look before we leap. We can leap if we have ,all the grounds covered and are ready to take the risks ,associated with them.

Let us learn to look before we leap from today.

S Ramesh Shankar

4th May 2025