The big questions confronting a first-generation, first-time entrepreneur, the questions, that is, he confronts himself with from time to time, are: Who are you? What are you about? Where are you headed? What's going to happen—in a year's time, ten years from now, twenty years...? What if 'it' doesn't happen? What if you fail? These and other self-probing plague him, dog his footsteps, threaten to cloud his judgment. He is, as you can surmise, far from the sanguine, self-assured creature you see leaping out of gleaming Mercedes cars, getting his pictures taken with the State Chief Minister. There are days, and I truthfully speak for myself, and possibly hundreds of other beleaguered souls like me, that I just want to crawl into my bed, put my face in the pillow, and never rise again.

Fortunately, something always happens to rekindle hope, shore up my flagging enthusiasm, brighten a fading vision. And the doubts are banished to a dark recess — for a while. Arguably everybody suffers from anxieties, whatever be the profession or occupation, and everybody thinks his are the most unbearable. The entrepreneur learns early — he has to — that his days are never the same. One day's misfortune can have his spirits plummeting, a day of achievement can make his hopes soar, only to fall a few notches on the third day. He has to learn how to live on an emotional roller-coaster, learn, that is, to ride out these days with equanimity because they are a phase, they are part of a whole, and there is much more to the whole than just the here and now.