Fighting Failures After Going To An IIT, Princeton & Silicon Valley
My resume of failures
While a lot of the posts on social media read like success is commonplace, and failure is an outlier, the truth cannot be any further than that. We get that almost every startup is raising tons of capital, and everyone is getting promoted and finding exciting job offers. A large part of the struggle is never talked about. This leads to unintended confirmation bias.
Sharing some of the “failures” that I have gone through in the last three years:
Failure#1: A Failed Project At Work
The project I worked on for more than 2.5 years failed & got disbanded. The problem eventually seemed intractable. Years of sweat, tears, and sacrifices didn’t make the cut.
Failure #2: Move Back To India Failed
We (me and my wife) decided to move back to India and build for India. Realized that the market was too foreign to understand, skill-sets didn’t match, and too much ambiguity in the ecosystem. The moving back plan failed. We gave up on a settled life and everything we had built over five years to find a dream back home. The lesson we learned is that the market doesn’t care.
Failure #3: Spousal Struggle Through Jobs
Spouse had to struggle through job switches between 2 nations. Covid made it significantly worse. The job market is almost down for non-tech employees. We realized that we couldn't stay in a non-Hindi locale. Employers in non-tech have very little empathy in the Indian market. Remote work in non-tech is tricky to start. Employers (non-tech) don’t care.
Failure #4: Bad Job Selection
Tried a path in India. The job fit wasn’t great. A year of work didn’t lead to anything fruitful. Eventually, both of us went through demoralization and professional depression.
Like every other endeavor, a career, as I see it, is a journey full of mishaps, errors, and misjudgments. Should we stop trying? No. Should we assume every step is going to succeed? No. Should we assume everyone is succeeding? Please don’t. That is the only way to keep your peace and work towards a better future.
Key takeaways.
Lesson #1: The market doesn’t care what your intentions are. It is ruthless and non-emotional.
Lesson #2: Be deaf to the world around you :)
Lesson #3: The real test of courage is when you make the jump. All the other thoughts are usually noise.
Lesson #4: No one can fight your battles other than you.
Lesson #5: Social media glorifies outliers, suppresses commonalities, and builds a statistically incorrect world view.
What Am I Doing Now?
I am pursuing my dreams in life right now.
Dream #1: Writing my first book, Be Buddha. I talk about my own experiences and share timeless lessons on living a life of peace, purpose, and passion.
Dream #2: Building a product that helps software engineers become more productive at the workplace (DecoverHQ).
About Ravi
Ravi is a poet, innovator, and entrepreneur. Ravi got a degree from IIT and Princeton University and lived in Bangalore and California, working at various software startups. He is the author of Be Buddha and regularly blogs at Ravi’s Blog.
