UdyamGita

As an entrepreneur, you will have thousands of things to juggle, and you will face both good and bad at every step, every day. If you start expecting a specific outcome at each step, exactly as per your desire, it will overwhelm you. When things do not happen your way, it will demotivate you and knock you down. Repeated knocks can eventually stop you from achieving your goals.

If outcomes happen exactly as you wish, you may start feeling great about yourself, and repeated success can create a false sense of superiority or self importance. This can derail both your personal growth and the growth of the organization. It also creates unnecessary pressure to deliver results every single time. The stress of consistently overachieving takes the joy out of the work at hand and limits your ability to experiment with new ideas, which may actually be very beneficial in the long run.

Even when dealing with people, if you start taking their business decisions personally, you may begin to take future decisions based on individuals rather than on what is right for the business. If you dislike someone’s business decision, you may treat them as a permanent rival. If you like their decision, you may start approving their future decisions without proper due diligence.

So instead of shaping your actions based on results, focus on the path you have chosen, irrespective of outcomes. Detach yourself from results, outcomes, and benefits. Like a yogi, an entrepreneur should keep doing the work at hand without being obsessed with the outcome. An entrepreneur understands the expected outcome of an action, but expecting it to unfold exactly as imagined, in the same form and scale, may not always happen. One should remain flexible and prepared for changes in outcomes.

There is also no option for an entrepreneur to avoid work. He cannot say that he cannot handle a particular task or that he does not have expertise in it. When the time comes, an entrepreneur must be willing to take up any kind of work. It is better to be a jack of all work. From janitorial tasks to business pitches, everything may need to be done on the same day or even in the same hour. To achieve the organization’s goal, the entrepreneur must be ready to roll up the sleeves and get hands dirty in any kind of work. This often leads to learning new skills in a very short time. There is no option to drop the ball.

Many times, current actions may be leading toward better outcomes and a stronger future in the long run. When actions are performed without attachment, you are able to align yourself and your organization to new horizons without friction. This frictionless alignment is the key to success.

Krishna now lays down the core operating principle of action.

He makes it clear that human control lies only in action, not in results. Attachment to outcomes disturbs the mind, while fear of outcomes can lead to inaction. True Yoga, Krishna says, is performing one’s duty with steadiness—remaining balanced in success and failure. Actions driven purely by reward-seeking are inferior to actions guided by clarity and intelligence.

This is not a call to indifference—it is a call to disciplined action without emotional entanglement.

Business Insight

An entrepreneur has countless responsibilities and faces good and bad outcomes every single day.

If you start expecting specific results at every step, exactly in the form and scale you desire, the journey quickly becomes overwhelming. When outcomes don’t go your way, disappointment and demotivation set in. Repeated setbacks can drain energy and even stop you from moving forward.

When outcomes do go as expected, another risk emerges. Repeated success can create a false sense of superiority and self-importance. This not only derails personal growth but also impacts the organization. It creates unnecessary pressure to overperform every time, slowly taking the joy out of the work and reducing the willingness to experiment—experiments that could be crucial in the long run.

Leadership Lesson

Taking results too personally affects how leaders judge situations and people.

When decisions are liked or disliked purely based on outcomes, objectivity is lost. Leaders may start carrying emotional biases forward, instead of evaluating each situation on its own merit. Over time, this clouds judgment and weakens decision quality.

Instead of anchoring actions to outcomes, entrepreneurs must anchor themselves to the path they have chosen. Detachment does not mean ignorance of results. An entrepreneur knows what outcome is expected but remains flexible when reality unfolds differently—in timing, scale, or form.

There is also no option of inaction. An entrepreneur cannot choose tasks selectively. From janitor work to investor pitches, from operational firefighting to strategic thinking, every task may need to be done—sometimes on the same day. Rolling up one’s sleeves and getting hands dirty is part of the role. This willingness accelerates learning and builds resilience.

Key Takeaways

• Focus on action, not on controlling outcomes
• Attachment to results overwhelms and demotivates
• Repeated success can inflate ego and slow growth
• Detachment preserves clarity and objectivity
• Entrepreneurs cannot opt out of responsibility
• Doing every kind of work builds capability fast
• Action without attachment enables frictionless growth