I still remember when I was leaving the P&G building on the evening of 31st March 2011, exactly 8 years back, I set out to do something of my own — something that I know I would regret of NOT doing (without the slightest idea of the details)

Incidentally, when I moved down from the 3rd floor to the parking, I did come down but missed getting my ego down as well.

It took few lakhs and personal challenges 2 years later that brought the ego levels down to the basement, that I was carrying with me from P&G days. That is when I realized that I was simply a very small cog in a massive machine, and building my own setup was a whole new dimension.

HealthyWorld was born, evolved and moved forward, backwards and sideways — with all the “learnings” as they say, True Elements was born, largely after 4 years.

Things have not been easy. Tough is an understatement. Stress is given. Compromises are assumed and Disappointments are a way of life.

But then you learn — and realize that for each of these downsides, there is a potential upside — Tough makes you resilient, Stress makes you resolve, compromises make you realign and disappointments make you cherish small wins!

Is it exciting? Apart from getting depressed looking at other Facebook statuses, you also feel low when transitioning Startup guys who asked you for tips when they were planning to quit are being featured on the front page of magazines, when ideas you believe won’t scale are being touted as the next trillion dollar idea, when young graduates interning with VCs have the wherewithal to opine on what you should be doing, without even knowing what GTM stands for!

You realize that you jumped out of the rat race only to enter another kind of horse race and the quest to be the white horse (or unicorn), the ones funded with the silver spoon!

In today’s Times (print edition), the front page had a quote from Winston Churchill, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”

And so we did. When you know the horse you are on is getting whiter day by day, you know something is going right! The whiteness on the horse you have been riding on is now showing (and it's not just the age)

So the “ex-corporate” became a guy who was “doing something of his own”, to “has been doing something for past few years” to “a startup guy”, and now, mostly, “is running a startup”.

And the same people who thought you were asking “kaisa chal raha hai? Market kaisa hai?” are now checking with you if they “can invest thoda sa”

Unicorn or not, you know not many horses are reaching where you are, and you feel like the Duracell bunny!

While it is easier to talk about sh#t only when you are out of it, it does get emotionally overwhelming when you reflect on it!

But then I look at my girl and boy, I look at them and smile for what they will think of their father — thankfully, somewhere, something is going right!

When you know when your family (or either side of the law) is no longer of shying away from telling that their son/son-in-law is an entrepreneur (or businessman!), you know somewhere, something is going right!

When your wife hears every frustration of office you carry with you everyday, but still stands next to you in every challenge, and feels proud of what you are doing, you know somewhere, something is going right!

When you know your co-founder, after multiple iterations of fights and arguments, can still tolerate and teach you, you realize he is the best ‘partner’ one can get, you know…..something somewhere is going right!

When you realize that it is not the identity you seek to be with the best employers, but those who seek their identity with the “Employer” you co-created, the identity that is not yours but a sum total of personal dreams of those who are working with you, you know something somewhere is going right!

You know a story that was created 8 years back is now being built, person by person, chapter by chapter, milestone by milestone!

There have been many characters of this story, some who have moved out of the stage while others who are still part of the ACT. The story that is still developing….the key is to realize that you are no longer the protagonist but a simple Director (pun intended!) anchoring the acts and coordinating the play of characters.

And when you have so many somethings that are going right, few ups and downs are fine for some masala, fine to make the story interesting, and worth making you wonder when you connect the dots….

you just look back and ask yourself, Any regrets?

Back comes a smirk with a slight sideways movement of my neck…

And that, just that, makes all the difference!

On to the next ACT….

Action!