Thread by @warikoo

A thread on success (and thus, failure)...

At the age of 24, I dropped out of my PhD program in the US and came back to India.

Because I figured that I was good at Physics.
But it didn't make me happy.

For the first time it struck me that if you are good at something it doesn't automatically make you happy doing it.

I had no plans.
No clue what I should be doing in life.
No idea on how to even figure it out.

I was clearly a failure.
When my friends from school/college were in jobs, some of them even married, I was jobless, aimless, goalless.

And my friends were like, "Look you are confused. So why don't you do what most confused people do?

Go, get an MBA!"

I wasn't sure.
2 years sounded too much of an investment - time and money.
Especially since I didn't know if an MBA was for me.

And then pure serendipity, I got to know of @ISBedu

Only 5 years old.
Expensive as fuck!
BUT
A 1-yr MBA
And a bunch of work experienced professionals coming together.

For someone, whose entire worldview was limited to Einstein, Newton and Archimedes, THIS was the shit.

Spend time with people who had done stuff for real.

And so I applied.
And thankfully got through (till date don't know why)

And that 1-yr just fundamentally changed me.
In every possible manner.

Because I didn't got to ISB looking for a job, or a career, or a company or a title.

I went there looking for myself.
Who the fuck am I?
What am I good at?
What makes me happy?
What could I possibly be doing?
And what should I not do?

But what I remember most out of that experience was how, from the very first day, the definition of success was already decided for all of us.

If you get through consulting, you are successful
Day 1 job, you are successful
Top 10% of the class, you are successful
A 3X multiple on your incoming salary, you are successful
GF/BF in the first week, you are successful
Dress well, speak well, you are successful

And I had just come out of a broken relationship with Physics, where I thought I was in love with it, but I clearly wasn't.

I remember my ENTIRE world telling me that coming back was fucked up and the worst decision ever.
But I didn't feel that. Not for a moment.

It felt like success to me.

To give up something that didn't make sense for me anymore and still have emotional, physical and moral courage to start all over again.

At ISB, it was so easy to fall in the perfectly laid out trap of the world's definition of success and take it to be yours.

And I am lucky that my past experience prepared me for what was to come.

I went searching for what success meant for me.

And that's the thing about success (and failure).

The world is constantly imposing it's definition of success and failure on us, from the day we are born.

Class 10th, scored well - success.
Didn't - failure

Scored well and took science - success.
Didn't - failure

Got through a kickass college - success
Didn't - failure
Didn't want to go to college at all and waste your time - disaster.

Got married at X yrs - success
Haven't got married - failure
Don't want to every marry - disaster

Had kids at Y yrs - success
Haven't had them - failure
Don't want to have kids - disaster

Bought that house, that car, that phone - success
Don't care about these things - failure

Have a stable job - success
Want to quit before you have another job, because it's toxic - failure

Raised money for your startup - success
Couldn't manage to - failure

Growing professionally - success
Still don't know what you want to do - failure

It is shocking how beautiful and seductive this trap is.
How well laid out it is.

We rarely stop to ask ourselves - whose definition of success am I following?
Who defined success for me?
My parents? My friends? My peers? My boss? My company?

Did anyone ever ask me, what does success mean to you?

Fuck everyone else
DID I EVER ASK MYSELF
what does success mean to me?
what is my failure?

I am reminded of the best anecdote that I have on this

I used to take a course at an MBA school several years back.
And the final exam of that 3-month course was a very simple question
"List at least 3 things you have learnt from this course"

Over 4 years, some 120 students took this exam.
And only 6 passed the exam!

How the fuck does one fail such an exam?
"List at least 3 things you have learnt from this course?"

The reason why everyone except those 6 failed the exam was because they listed EXACTLY 3 things

EXACTLY 3 things that they learnt from the course.

When my question was
"List AT LEAST 3 things that you have learnt from this course"

I mindfucked the students.
I tricked them into believing a definition of success that I created for them

List 3 and you are successful.

That is what the world does to us EVERYDAY

Our parents, our partners, our bosses, our friends, the world - is constantly asking us to get "this" done to be successful.

And we do it and "feel" successful.
And yet empty.
Fucking empty.

And we wonder why!

It is because we never stopped to ask ourselves - what does success mean to ME?

We never paused and asked ourselves - is this what is MY success or MY failure?

We never realized - we have been living someone else's life.
Not ours!

Fin.