BTS: Behind the scenes! (2015-2022)

19th November 2022

Recently Rishi Sunak was entitled Prime Minister of the UK, and I again remembered my favorite quote that says, "Success has many fathers, Failure is an orphan!" The moment this news broke out, India, Pakistan, and Kenya were on a quest to show how they are closely related to him. The same happened with many others, and I wonder, how do they feel and react to this whole situation!?

Well, as we talk about success, I am in no mood to talk about it (not because I do not have any, noteworthy one! I have grown a lot, personally!), however, I am in a mood to talk about my failures today. I embraced motherhood in May 2015. I was working till my 9th month. And after that, I took a break, which I suppose was going to be a maternity break. However, that was not the case. I had to leave my full-time, well-paying job. Initially, I did not mind, all the time used to fly away around my baby. But after 6 months, when I had almost recovered from my c-section, the baby had proper sleep cycles, I was done watching all the TV I ever wanted and I had abundant lonely time to think and ponder; that was the time that had become difficult to pass. It haunted me badly, so much so that I used to be irritated and frustrated most of the time. That phase, I assume would be a tint of post-partum depression creeping in. I had become very vulnerable and forgetful, I used to cry easily, get angry in seconds, shout for no reason, and many other things!

One day, I sat and thought to myself, I was never like this, what has happened to me? It took more than a week to calm myself down and recollect my pieces to move ahead to do something constructive. I understood it was my loneliness and my idleness that had broken me from the inside, making me bitter. From then the zeal of doing something started. Being an engineer, I could only think of a job. I tried searching for part-time jobs. There were hardly any! Then keeping the flame of doing something alive, I made up my mind to do what came my way.

Meanwhile, I was networking with people on social media. I used to see women doing business, so I shared this idea of reselling with my husband. It was a zero investment thing, he said if that is what interests you, go ahead. I started making contacts, promoting on social media, and whatnot! Earned a little money that kept me going. I did resell for around 1 year. But now the scenario had changed. I was getting orders returned and I was paying the customers through my pocket, which is not advisable in a business. So I finally decided to shut this venture down!
Then started the search for "What to do now?" While I searched for a work-from-home option from a popular job portal, I came across two opportunities. I thought of going ahead with each one of them one-by-one. The first one was a typing project, where they were going to send us scanned pages of Novels and we had to type and send them back (so that they could upload them in form of an ebook I suppose now!) 150 pages in 15 days. I was going to get paid after I sent my 3rd set of work with all 3 of them being in an accuracy range of 80% or more. This opportunity even had a deposit of 7k INR! I felt it to be genuine and gave in to it. It was very tough, but with the help of my husband, I managed to send my first set in 15 days. The next day I received an email that said my typing accuracy was 68%, so now there was no point in taking upcoming sets of work, as after doing it so carefully my accuracy was low!

It was then time to pick up the second opportunity from the portal! Upon inquiring more, I learned it was a recognized e-commerce platform that was looking to cold call their previous customers to bring them back to shop with some discount vouchers. The payout was dependent on if they come back and use the discount code, also 80 calls per day was a mandatory thing! Having worked for BPO in past, I was well aware, with my current domestic responsibilities and baby I would not be able to pull it off! Hence, dropped that idea as well!

The networking was happening on social media, had joined many communities on Facebook, and used to read all the comments on a work-from-home post to see if there could be something that would suit my requirement. But, nothing worked. Then, saw an opportunity of becoming a moderator at an all-women's community with a 10k crowd. Expressed my interest and got through. My only role there was to make engaging posts and content. Having no experience, still tried to put up motivational, recipe, and little feminist kind of posts. In a very short time, received loads of appreciation and made some really good contacts. I came across a new opportunity, a startup in the travel sector was looking for travel advisors and it was a work-from-home job. They were paying well too! So applied for it and started the training. It was 3 days of training that happened at a co-working space, got to meet new people, and made new connections. At the end of the third day, when we were explained about our commission percentage and everything, we all were pumped up and waiting for the next day to Chapofy the money. But a couple of hours after we returned home, we got a call from HR saying the venture is going to shut down. When, why, and how, no further explanation was provided!

I recentred and focused on being the moderator and churning relatable content, continued doing it for two years, and could not find growth, maybe that was not my calling. After I started expressing myself, the creative ideas in me did not know the limit. To overcome all the limitations and let creativity flow seamlessly, I decided to quit that and take a break to find my calling. My son's third birthday was approaching, penned down a heartfelt poem for the same and shared it on social media. It was very well received by everyone. The true writing journey began there. I made a Facebook page where I started writing about motivation, daily incidents in life, and parenting. In a very short time, I started receiving messages that said, " Start writing a book!" And, today an author of 6 published books, laughed at this statement then! It is like the Universe conspired me to do it! But it is a very good feeling, and I find myself in a very good space!

Now coming to why I talked about failures in this blog! Do not be quick to judge others' success, it did not come easy, try to research and analyze what they did differently! In my case, I can clearly say, it was NOT GIVING UP that worked. With every failure, there was a little disappointment that accompanied it, but the belief of IF THIS DID NOT WORK, SOMETHING ELSE WILL was also there! Like a camera focus has to be adjusted to click a clear picture, similarly, with each failure picture only became clearer for me! So every time the picture is blurry, adjust and refocus! I am not someone who is into self-praise but having lived and witnessed my journey makes me feel like it can be helpful to others who are seeking a ray of hope! If this story inspires even one person, I would consider the job done!