Don't Search for Passion, It's in Your Proximity | Mr. Rahul Arora | TEDxLNCTBhopal
13 May 2024 (5 months ago)
The Speaker's Background and Journey to Finding Passion
- The speaker's childhood experiences, such as being restricted from participating in school trips and socializing after 7 pm, led them to question societal norms and develop a limitless mindset.
- Inspired by the movie "The Social Network," the speaker pursued content creation despite graduating from a tier-3 college with limited placement opportunities.
- Their passion for content creation was discovered through their involvement in extracurricular activities, particularly event management.
- Despite being advised against majoring in computer science due to uncertain job prospects, the speaker chose electronics as a backup option with the potential to switch later.
- During their second year of college, they attempted to create a platform to connect colleges but faced failure due to lack of technical skills.
- This experience taught them valuable entrepreneurial lessons and reinforced their passion for problem-solving.
- After declining placement offers from two companies, they started a recharge website business but encountered challenges due to technical issues and financial constraints, leading to its failure.
- The failure of the website resulted in a six-month period of depression, as the speaker felt they were doing everything right by following their passion and focusing on problem-solving.
Learning from Failures and Building a Successful Venture
- To overcome their depression, the speaker took a job and learned coding through various online resources.
- They worked as an engineer at several big product-based companies in India for the next seven years, gaining valuable experience and knowledge.
- Their motivation for learning coding was not only to secure a job but also to prevent being taken advantage of by tech companies in the future, as they planned to start their own tech company.
- During their last job, they conducted numerous interviews and realized that passion alone is not enough, as they experienced Monday blues while working.
- As a full-time founder, the speaker discusses the concept of passion and happiness in the context of work.
- They describe their experiences in the first three years of developing their current venture, particularly the challenges of hiring engineers.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of selling the vision, product, and culture of a startup to potential employees in the early stages.
- They learned the art of convincing others to believe in their product and join their venture during the first year of founding their startup.
- In the second year, they pivoted their venture to a bigger opportunity and achieved rapid growth, reaching close to a million dollars in revenue within six months.
- The speaker attributes their success to their passion and the investment they put into their venture.
- The third year focused on building leadership and recognizing the importance of teamwork and hiring the right people.
Passion, Purpose, and the Pursuit of Meaningful Work
- The speaker reflects on their personal experiences of working long hours and sacrificing personal time due to their passion for their business.
- They emphasize that passion meets purpose, and finding one's passion automatically leads to discovering one's purpose without excessive effort.
- The speaker questions the common saying, "Der hai andher nagari, chaupat raja," and wonders if it is possible to earn money while still achieving something meaningful.