You learn more from failure stories

Success stories inspire us, but if you observe carefully, you will get to know that you can learn more from failure stories.

IIT-JEE, my friend’s dream

I was unfortunate that I got to know about IIT-JEE only when I was in the 12th grade. To get an admission there was my friend’s dream, I considered it as my own and started studying for it from the month of October. As you know, it’s not easy at all and without proper guidance, it’s not possible to crack the exam. Results were as expected; my score was negative.

• Loss: Wasted valuable time, didn’t focus on CET and that is why my CET score was low as well.
• Gain: As I didn’t study for exams, it helped me to clear basic concepts about Physics and Mathematics. This helped me in engineering.

A niche site about saving marriages

When I started affiliate marketing full time (after resigning TCS) with one of my friends (it’s not Tushar), he decided the niche “how to save your marriage”. That friend was in 12th and I was 22 years old. We both had no clear idea about marriage, other than that marriage is too far 😛 Never in my dreams had I thought about starting a niche site on marriage. Later, due to 12th exams, my friends asked me to continue alone. Because I had no domain knowledge and interest in this niche, I failed.

• Loss: Financial loss - as I created many backlinks and purchased some domains for PBN.
• Gain: Got to know many things about marriage. Also learned many things in this process as this was my first affiliate site.

TCS, my parents’ dream

I was lucky enough that without aptitude test, TCS directly selected me for the technical and HR interview. I got selected and their joining was too late. In the meantime, I focused on my business as I never wanted to join TCS. It was my parent’s dream to join it. I did that but resigned after only two months.

• Loss: A penalty of ₹ 50,000 (Bond Breaking).
• Gain: Got to know about many things e.g. corporate culture. Met many awesome people, they are very good friends now.

GRE and TOEFL, because my friends were

When I was in TCS, many friends were studying for GRE and TOEFL. I thought that I too should do this. After resigning from TCS, I joined the class for it and stopped going to the class after two weeks. It was not my dream to crack GRE and TOEFL.

• Loss: Class fee i.e. ₹ 17,000-18,000.
• Gain: After attending lectures for two weeks, I decided to focus on my work. It helped me to understand my interests.

Then I started setting my own

After these many incidents, I never considered someone else’s dreams to be mine. I started doing those things that I love and matter to me.

When you set up dreams on your own, the efforts you take are totally different. There is a voice within you (inner voice); just listen to it and no dream is unachievable.

TL;DR

Never consider someone else’s dreams as yours; set your own and try to pursue them. Don’t live someone else’s life.

PS: “’Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” I hope you all are wise enough to learn from my mistakes.