Revisit your life for the dreams that you had

Stories of Role Models

Srinivasa Addepalli persisted. You can learn to turn seeming failures into successes, from him.

Chubby me, loved reading books when I was a kid. 

Fatty, Jupiter and I would go on adventures whenever I could lay my hands on those books. 

I wanted to be a detective. It was not to be.

My story is about the failure of all my dreams. Yet, they all came true.

Both my grandfathers wanted me to be a professor. Alas, that also did not happen.

I was an unwilling student in engineering, preferring to write creatively instead. I moonlighted in Rashmi Bansal's JAM magazine. 

But I did not give up on electronics engineering.

Next, I got into the IIM Ahmedabad after BE. Rashmi agreed it was too good to miss. 

The writer dream also went Poof!

By the time placements came around at the Vastrapur campus, I saw myself as a marketing guru. 

None of the marketing companies touched me with a 10-foot pole. I added one more failure to my already somewhat full cap.

I used to make fun of consulting in those days. Telling aspiring class toppers around me, 'You are setting yourselves up to be armchair Gods’.

Gods had the last laugh. I found a consulting job at the Tata Strategic Management Group (TSMG).

And then, everything that I wanted did end up happening. 

Why? Because I stayed at it, even if I initially felt I had failed. 

At TSMG, I was doing at my job what I had wanted to do as a detective. 

Looking for clues and solving mysteries. Then advising strategically.

I loved being a problem solver. I was a teacher too - teaching my own team to do better.

I also signed up to teach a course at my alma mater. I had specialised in cross-border M&A work. Now I would teach it over 10 sessions, to real IIMA students.

I landed at Ahmedabad airport and there was a driver waiting to pick me up. His placard read, 'Prof. Srinivasa Addepalli'.

I remembered my grandfathers. 

Detective - Tick. Professor - Tick.

I was on top of my corporate career path when I quit to do something teaching related. 

I founded GlobalGyan, wanting to teach leadership skills relevant to the Indian Industry, with an Indian ethos.

I began to write about what I felt, what I knew. On LinkedIn. For magazines. In Case Studies.

Then on a whim, I hunted the hostel stories I used to write during engineering days for JAM. 

The chase was worthy of a detective. Old floppy disks, the archival section of the JAM magazine, even old paper files. 

I rewrote, edited and put the stories out as my first book. 

'Hostelitis' is a journey of nostalgia for those of us who have survived hostel life. See - https://lnkd.in/efzwdAdy

Writer - tick.

We all have dreams. They don’t often materialise. Not right away. Not in the desired shape.

Meanwhile, the universe waits to see if we persist.

If we do - it rewards us amply. Dreams come true.

This is the insight from the life I have lived up to now. It can be yours too.