We are social animals.
We need people around us. Community. Connection. The feeling of being needed, liked, and understood. That is not a weakness; that is just human. But here is where it gets complicated. When we constantly look outside ourselves for validation, when who we are becomes a reflection of what others expect, we slowly lose the thread that connects us to ourselves.
And most of us don’t even notice it happening.
I talk to a lot of people. And one of the things I hear more than almost anything else is some version of this: I used to be really good at drawing or painting or writing or music. Or something. Some outlet, some gift, some part of themselves that got quietly buried under the years of becoming what they were expected to become.
I understand that more than I can say.
In high school, I wanted to be a fashion designer. I used to draw sketches. I was cultivating something, a skill, a vision, a version of myself I was curious about. But I didn’t have access to that world. I couldn’t see what you could actually do with those skills. My dad is an engineer. My mom is an accountant. They were building a business, doing what worked, doing what made sense. And so I followed what I could see. I was good at problem-solving, and that part of computer science made sense to me. So I went there and, in doing so, quietly buried the creative, designing side of who I was.
I am not saying I would have become a fashion designer. That is not the point.
The point is that who we are today is shaped far more by our surroundings than by what was actually inside us. The access we had. The examples we could see. The expectations that were spoken and unspoken. We became what was visible to us. And everything else, the gifts, the curiosities, the quiet passions got left behind.
So stop for a second.
Is there something in you that got buried? Something you were once good at, once drawn to, once lit up by that you haven’t touched in years?
One of the reasons I love talking to people from so many different industries and walks of life is that I want people to see the opportunities that lie ahead. The ones I couldn’t see when I was a kid, standing at the edge of a world I didn’t have a map for.
I was always a dreamer. I didn’t always have the window to see what was possible.
Maybe this is your window.
How do you find it again?
If you are confused about how to even get started, the following might help, but I do have to say it is an effort, and you have to take the time.
Go back to childhood.
What did you love before the world told you what to love? Before the pressure of practicality, before the expectations, before you knew what was realistic. Think back to what you did purely for the joy of it.
Notice what you admire in others.
Sometimes what we admire most in other people is a reflection of something dormant in ourselves. The artist you follow obsessively. The writer whose work stops you cold. Ask yourself what it is about them that pulls me? The answer is usually closer to home than you think.
Try things without the pressure of being good at them.
We stopped exploring because we became afraid of being beginners. Permit yourself to be terrible at something new. Take the class. Pick up the instrument. Open the sketchbook. You are not auditioning. You are excavating.
Sit in the quiet and ask yourself honestly.
If nobody was watching. If money weren’t a factor. If you had nothing to prove, what would you spend your days doing? Write that answer down. However impractical it sounds.
What I’m Reading
The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen(Finished)
Explores why platforms like Uber, Airbnb, Tinder, and Facebook struggled in their earliest days and how they overcame the challenge of building network effects from zero. This is a must-read for anyone who is starting a marketplace or using network effects.
Crush It - Gary Vee (Reading)
I want to use this as a guide for building.
Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss(Reading)
I have been told this is a must-read for negotiating.
What Else Dropped This Week
Off Script
Identity, Nuance, and Building the Media Company South Asians Deserve | Hiba Irshad
The Startup Lawyer Breaking Every Rule, and Writing Better Ones - Aravinda Seshadri
Under the Hood
The New Media Moguls Nobody Saw Coming
Note to Self
Somewhere along the way, you buried a part of yourself to become what made sense to everyone else.
You are the only person who will be there for yourself till the very end. So enjoy your own company. Get curious about yourself again. The way you were before the world had opinions about who you should be.
That person never left. She just got quiet.
It is time to listen.
Be bold. Be real. Be Anomalous.
— Sai Menon
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