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This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, CEO, LawSikho. 

My mother wants me to get married. She is emotionally blackmailing me. Therefore I cannot achieve my dreams.

My parents want me to take a housing finance loan, buy a big flat in so and so city/locality, and then spend my entire life doing this job I hate in order to pay the installments. How can I start up the company/practice I always wanted to start up?

I want to travel around the world. I have the money too. But my parents never give me permission.

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My father wants me to work in our family business. He does not approve of me doing anything else. I wanted to work with you guys but my father does not understand.

I want to be a salsa teacher. But my parents are saying they cannot show their face in society if I don’t get a job even after doing law.

I want to get a divorce. My husband beats me up. My in-laws disrespect and ill-treat me every day, but my mother cries every time I tell her that I want a divorce. She also said my father may get a heart attack because of me.

I have heard many versions of these stories throughout my life. Parents not understanding, not allowing, not giving permission, threatening and blackmailing to have their way.

For a while, I believed these stories. And then I started to realize what is going on.

When I decided to study law, my parents were kind of heartbroken. They named me after a famous mathematician, and they hoped I will at least become an engineer if not a scientist. Or a doctor as a compromise.

I wanted to become a lawyer.

It caused a lot of disturbance in my family circles. People assumed I was dumb or too lazy to slog for the JEE etc. And my parents said they would not allow me.

This was not the first or last time. They didn’t want me to buy a motorbike, they thought I will die in an accident if I did.

When I was quitting my law firm job to start iPleaders, my mother asked me to hold it off. She wanted to build a house and wanted my help in getting loans etc. I refused. I gave her whatever savings I had, and told her to not expect anything for me for the next 5 years at least. I will not show up at your door poor though, I said. You manage the rest.

But they always got it. They always came around and supported me. I was always able to win them over. I will tell you how.

I got this formula so down to pat, that I started applying it for benefit of others.

My parents started to plan to get my sister married when she was 26. Just 3 years out of law school, beginning to spread her wings as a professional. My parents wanted to get her married off.

When I figured this out, I called up my parents. I told them that my sister wants to do her masters and Ph.D. abroad and teach at a foreign university. How would they like that? My sister wanted to do that. Are they with her?

Their vision of a happy life for my sister got transformed into one call. From marriage and kids, it became a powerful legal academic living the kind of life my parents always wanted to live but could not.

In reality, my sister now practices law in Kolkata, on her own, and doing very well. She is almost 30, and nobody is pressurizing her for marriage till date. She will do what she wants to do when she wants to do.

That’s the magic formula. Replacing one picture your parents already have with a bigger, more powerful vision that you supply, knowing that they are going to love it.

Have you tried it?

Parents do want good things for us. They want us to be happy. But sometimes what they think will make us happy do not really make us happy. They don’t understand what really is going to make us happy and successful.

My friend has been complaining about how his mother is trying to get him married and insisting on him doing a government job rather than starting up. I asked him if he has ever shared what he wants to do with his life with his mother and tried to show how he wants to achieve bigger things in life.

Turns out he has never done it. He doesn’t have a vision for himself. But he complains every day about how it is because of his mother he cannot make bold career decisions as I have made.

I made him confront the fact that he has no vision for his own life, and at least his mother has one!

My karate teacher used to do a day job at a call center. He used to earn more from his karate classes just on the weekends, that too only a few hours, than what he earned from the day job which he totally hated.

But his parents were like “what will we tell our neighbors? What will we say to your uncles? That you are a karate teacher?”

He could never say with pride “Yes! I am a karate teacher and proud of it. Why can you not appreciate me for how good I am at it?”

Then he took that stance one day. Now he is flown around the country as an elite self-defense instructor, hired by large corporations for self-defense training of their employees as well as by HNIs who want a good self-defense training.

He is not doing any day job anymore. He lives on his own terms. His parents have also not died from shame or social stigma. It turned out that most of the anxiety was blown out of proportion.

Your parents want you to be happy and safe. This is true for most people at least. I know parents who have done horrible things to their kids too. But that’s really rare.

However, you got to lead them to understand, appreciate, and recognize what you are up to. You have to share your dreams with them. You have to inspire them.

If you have not done that, do not blame them. You are the one to blame.

I told my parents about why I want to study law. I told them about how awesome NLUs were. I told them that I wanted to become a diplomat. They saw a steely resolve in me. They felt reassured. And then they helped me all the way.

I told them that I am not going to live a life of fear. I told them I want to live boldly. I told them about my near-death experiences. I told them who I am. They recognized, understood and loved me because there was no hesitation, no desperation and no uncertainty in me. They even found me a garage to keep my motorbike.

I told them about my startup dream. I told them how I want to impact the world by making justice and legal education available. It took them a long time to understand what I was upto. When they understood, not a single time have they asked me to stop pursuing what I wanted to pursue.

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It is selfish to have a dream, to have a vision and then to not tell your parents about it. They will be the happiest when they find out that you have such a big vision for yourself.

So many times people who want to buy our courses tell me that their parents are not giving them permission to do our course.

Here is what I say to them. Your parents do not trust you. Earn their trust. They want to trust you, just show that you can take responsibility for yourself.

Also, strike a deal with them. What is in it for them?

Tell them to help me to do this course, and I promise you I will show you results. I will get these internships in big law firms, I will graduate with a job that will pay 1 lakh per month, I will be a great lawyer and will charge 1 lakh per hearing one day, I want to work at Google as a tech lawyer, or whatever else that inspires you. I don’t know and can’t say what it is for you. It is your vision and it is for you to figure out.

Tell your parents. Inspire them, astonish them, move them with your amazing vision. And then go and make it happen. You have double the power when you do something with your parents’ blessings. Turn them into your allies.

Your parents will support you. They just want you to succeed. They want you to be safe, but they really badly want you to be bigger than what they could imagine for you.

And here are the courses you could enroll into, in the month of March with us:

Diploma

Executive Certificate Course 

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