Hello! I am Sri, and brand new to steemit. I thought the best way to introduce myself to you, is through my flaws and failures. So here you go.
Failure story #1: Landing a software engineering job
Have you ever had the feeling of not landing a job, even after months of preparation? This was my feeling right out of college, even after extensive training on coding questions. I got rejected by around 40 tech companies. People told me that I wasn't good enough to be a software engineer.
As time and money were running out I became desperate to take up any job. One fine morning, a sales job post caught my attention. I interviewed and somehow got selected!! You know it feels great to finally have a $$ job, after a series of rejections.
Not knowing anything about sales, I assumed it will be easier than coding. As they say, ignorance is bliss.
A month in as a salesperson, I learned that I sucked at sales a lot more than coding.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Sales targets need to be met to keep the $$ flowing. Hence, I spent 17 hours a day learning and selling for 6 months. That helped me to become one of the top sales people of the company. It was great to taste professional success for the first time in life. Everything seemed great for a while.
Have you ever felt that something was missing, even though you had everything? Sales was great, but I missed the joy of creating products.
I wanted to try for a software engineering job yet again. But this time around, it was different, sales taught me to be fearless of rejection. So I faced my fear of coding head-on. I started viewing interviews as a learning experience and not as an exam.
This mindset helped me to land my first software engineering job. And this mindset helped me to land highly challenging and rewarding jobs at Apple and Google later on.
Failure story #2: Building a successful startup
There was always something exciting about creating products for people. This excitement pushed me to go on my next adventure .... building a startup with people I enjoyed working with.
I am a foodie, love baked goods and artisanal bakeries. Talking to mom n pop bakeries, we noticed that most of the bakeries did not even have a website, and foodies did not have easy access to them. Our team built and launched a platform that connects baked good lovers with local artisan bakeries.
With a click of a button, you can send a freshly baked cake or bread to your friends and family. Within a short time, our startup had users that loved the product, 10% growth every month, and awesome investors. Can you guess what skill helped me the most in this journey? ...
It was sales from my previous failure.
Our startup was doing great and seemed to be growing at a steady pace. But all that tanked after the first 8 months, user growth plummeted, customer retention suffered, and raising the next round of funding became extremely hard.
My dream of building a successful startup shattered into pieces and our startup story came to an abrupt end. I failed as a co-founder and CEO. I think I let down my team, customers, and investors who believed in us.
But through this journey, I learned several lessons the hard way and most importantly established great connections with people. The whole process taught me why and how not to build a startup, as well as the right ways to do it. I am forever indebted to my team, customers, and investors, who helped me grow personally and professionally.
I now help other founders build their startups and enjoy seeing them succeed. Moreover, I now have a perpetual beginner mindset and always looking for compelling problems to solve.
Failure story #3: Handling stress
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor! on Unsplash!
Life is strange. When things go wrong in one facet of life, it has a cascading effect in all other facets. Soon after my startup failed, I had a family emergency, suffered relationship problems, and financially broken at the same time.
Was there a time when your life felt like a pandora’s box? I was stressed out and did not know where my life was going.
I just wanted to stay away from people and lock myself up in a remote place.
I just wanted to imagine and relive all the happy moments in my life. Did you ever feel like becoming a kid again? I did, and I went back to my home country, India, to relive some of those moments.
And there, I found a subtle sense of spirituality, and calmness amidst the chaos.
I was drawn to spirituality for answers. I started reading books on spirituality and practiced meditating every day. One fine day, I heard about Vipassana, a 10-day silent meditation retreat, and that changed me.
I leaned into spirituality to reduce stress. But learned something greater, that is to become one with everything in the universe.
The positive side of each failure
Photo by Estée Janssens! on Unsplash!
Now, looking back at all my failures, I am happy that those happened to me.
Failing at landing a software engineer job taught me about sales, the ability to overcome rejection, and leaning into new experiences. Every new experience that is out of your comfort zone, helps you somewhere later in life.
Failing at building a startup taught me why to build a startup, the right process to build a startup, and more than anything the joy of helping others walk the similar path.
Failing at handling stress taught me about spirituality, meditation, generosity, and how much I do not know.
I am now always learning more about spirituality, startups, personal growth, and new experiences. At the center of all this is to learn from people and help people.
I am also trying to improve my writing skills, please let me know your feedback on my writing, and what do you want my second post to be about - Spirituality? Startups? Personal growth? Or an in-depth analysis of my failures?