When I made my last episode, I did not know what I was going to talk about in this episode. Sometimes we just have to take that first step, and then we take the second step and the third, and then we move. The first step is always the most difficult one.

As I was thinking about Agile Indian, I was asking myself who is an Indian. Is this podcast only for people who have some connection with India? And what does connection with India mean? Does it mean you are a citizen of India? Does it mean you were born and brought up in India, or that you have roots in India?

For me, if you have had curry, if you have danced to a Bollywood tune, if you have watched a Bollywood movie, if you have ever been to India, or if you have worked with anyone who has roots in India, then I think this podcast is for you.

As an Indian living abroad for almost thirty years, I just want to share my perspectives about life and about work.

One question that came to my mind recently was about career and decisions.

I started my career in 1993 after graduating from Regional Engineering College, Calicut, now the National Institute of Technology. I never wanted to be an engineer. I was okay with studies, but I was lazy. Engineering or medicine meant a lot of studying, and I thought I could probably do something else.

I got good marks, but that was not really my choice. In school, you had to study well. If I had been given a choice that you don’t have to get marks, maybe I wouldn’t have.

Instead of going into a technical route, I took up sales because I always had this feeling that I was not good technically. I thought talking to people, convincing people, doing sales would work for me. Even people around me told me that sales might be something I should pursue.

I spent seventeen years of my career doing sales before I figured out that I was not good at it. Sometimes realizations come very late.

Every year, especially around November and December, I reflect back on the year 2010. That was one of the lowest points in my life, both professionally and personally.

I made a decision in November 2010, and that decision made a lot of difference. Till then, I was running my own companies. I had a dream to be an entrepreneur. I built companies and kept doing that for about seventeen years until I realized that I was not good at it. I realized my limits and my weaknesses.

I was probably delusional for about seventeen years, or maybe I was not able to put in the kind of effort that was needed. Some dreams are meant for people who can put in that effort. Looking back today, I feel that either the effort I put in was not enough or it simply did not work out for me.

So I decided to drop the entrepreneurship dream I had carried for seventeen years and pursue something else, something I had no idea about. Over the last fifteen years, that decision has made a lot of difference in my life.

Again, that decision was not really my choice. I could not continue living the way I was, professionally or personally. I was forced to change. I was forced to drop my dream and look in a different direction. Sometimes that makes all the difference.

Many times when we take decisions, we don’t know their impact. In hindsight, we can say whether a decision was good or bad, but not at that time. We do some mental calculations and think this is the right way forward.

That is why, over the past fifteen years, every year at the end of the year, I revisit that decision from 2010. Until this year, I have always felt that decision was right. There were some years when I thought maybe it was not right and that I should go back into entrepreneurship.

But when I look back after fifteen years and see where I am now, I feel more comfortable, more happy, and more content. At the end of the day, career is about happiness, contentment, and being comfortable.

Some people will disagree and say that the moment you become comfortable, you stop growing. But I feel more free today. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Everyone doesn’t have to run a business or have a startup. Some people, like me, might be better at contributing within a company rather than creating one.

You might be better off helping people pursue their dreams and, in that process, being successful and content.

At the end of the day, life is a balance sheet of all the decisions we took and all the decisions we did not take.

There will be people who tell me that if I had just persisted a little more, I could have been very successful. In 2010, I threw away everything I had created until that point — the knowledge, the skills, everything. But in my new career, all those skills and learnings help me in one way or another.

Nothing we do in life is wasted.

When I make podcasts and talk to people, there is still that salesperson in me who has no problem talking to people, connecting with them, listening, bringing people together, and trying to sell an idea. Not as a salesperson, but as a professional. There is always an element of selling in what we do.

What works for one person need not work for another. At some point in life, we all reach a moment where we want change. We don’t know whether that change will help us, but we want it.

If it had not worked for me, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking today. It worked for me.

So whenever we look at our career and feel that things need to change, before deciding, we need to self-reflect. We need to ask why we want to do it, come up with some answers, make a decision, and decide only for a year. Then revisit that decision every year.

Even today, I revisit the decision I took in 2010 and give it another year.

Every year at the end of the year, I do a reset. I think this is the best time for resets. Recently, I wrote two pages about what I want from my current company, the opportunities I want to pursue, the value I want to create, my weaknesses, the strengths I am not able to use, and where I need help.

These are interesting questions to ask at the end of the year.

I don’t know what the next episode is going to be about. I just want to come and talk. Some things might make sense, some might not. But I want to bring discipline into my life by coming in front of the camera every week and speaking for ten minutes. That is my only goal.

I am committing myself to fifty-two videos in 2026, one every week. I will revisit that decision at the end of 2026.

You guys take care. I’ll see you next week. Thank you.