Four Years of Fortitude

It has been four years since I left my rather comfortable job and started on my own. And since then I have been reviewing it every year and documenting the learning. More like annual appraisals focussed on learning and a lot more honest. The first review started after the end of the second year though!

In this year’s review, I share five key learning. (Those keen on my previous blogs documenting the learning, here are the links for Year 2 & Year 3)

1. Do Less, Excel in Everything You Do

When one is out there, surround by uncertainties & looking for validation, one ends up doing way too many things than one could possibly do justice to. As a result, one ends up doing giving less than 100% to almost everything leading to sub-optimal outputs or unfinished jobs. While sub-optimal outputs can get create money & fame, they would generally come at the cost of peace of mind.

The damage caused by the sub-optimal output is long-lasting. The world judges you by what you deliver without accounting for the number of things you contributed to or what you were going through. So yes, do less but give your best in everything you do!

2. “Go Slow”

In my last blog about shifting my base location to Bhilai, I clarified that the movement to a smaller city doesn’t imply that I am slowing down. So did I change my stand/view in 6 months? The short answer is a big NO!

I have come to realize that the only way to enjoy life is to “slow down”. However, for me slowing down doesn’t imply, lesser work or more time off. For me, “slowing down” is reducing the number of things one chases.

The more things you chase, the faster you want to run, the lesser you end up living

So while I continue to put in hard work, I am no longer chasing the next big car, a bigger house, or vacationing at an exotic location. In my mind,

There are only three things worth chasing — financial independence, health & relationships

3. Don’t take shit from anyone

This life is too short to deal with toxicities. Unfortunately, most of us end up tolerating toxic “friends”, relatives, clients, and bosses for a longish period of time. And sometimes it becomes difficult to walk away because of financial constraints or social pressure. Luckily, it is possible to get off the trap and it starts with financial independence.

When you are financially independent, you have fuller control of your life, more free time and limited dependence on others. Getting rid of the toxicities then becomes a lot more easy.

To clarify, I am not financially independent yet but nearly there and I can already feel the power of it. A few days ago we let go of a toxic client who owed us several thousand dollars — it didn’t hurt us a bit emotionally!

If this piqued your interest in financial independence, here is a thread documenting my journey that caught fire.

4. Upskill for a fulfilling life and better living

It is interesting how we learn new things in the early years of our lives and almost put a full stop to it when we grow older. The joy of learning new things is unmatchable. So why do we stop learning new things? My guess is we get way too comfortable with who and where we are, which results in misery in long term. And yes, there are practical challenges around opportunity cost — if you spend time learning something, you end up giving up on something you already do!

In the last year, I spent about 15–20 hours each week for about 24 weeks learning Machine Learning and Python. Surely, I had to give up a few things I did, which included a few projects (and hence actual dollars over and above USD 4,000 I spent on the course), a few web series, and some personal/family time.

And what did I get? the joy of learning new things, confidence that I can learn complex things (and I am not too old yet), wider opportunities in terms of projects, and improved understanding of possibilities with InsurTechs. Incidentally, I have already recovered the fees and delivered a project using Machine Learning techniques, and wrote code in Python.

Was the journey easy? Absolutely not. Was it worth it? 100%!

5. Sustainability over Growth

While I was always conscious of not living beyond means, I now strongly believe that a business should aspire to get profitable before it goes for growth. I don’t get the math around spending $100 to generate revenue of $5.

For me, growth should be fueled by the profits generated by the business. This puts back all the focus on building solid products that sell, making the processes efficient, and building a rock-solid team! ProtectMeWell is being built on the exact same principles and I am proud of the product, the team, and the impact we have created in the lives of 25K individuals!

Equally, on the consulting side of things, which I have been doing for 4 years now, I am proud to share that Vikas Singh has joined me full-time. It was possible to onboard a highly experienced actuarial professional having a promising corporate job because of the sustainable consulting practice built over the last 4 years. And of course, Vikas took a huge leap of faith. Welcome, Vikas!