Tell Me What You Want What You Really, Really, Want

Have you ever asked yourself that question?

And no, not the time you were singing aloud to Spice girls when you thought you were alone and surprised an unsuspecting family member. “What? I didn’t know you were into Spice girls?” “Spice Girls? Wait, What? Who?” I have asked myself the question probably twice in my life – one when I had to make the decision to pursue computer science and engineering and second when I started my company, Zinda.

When I read the book, in addition to the inhumanity of slavery, the next thing that struck me was the fleeting nature of human life.

The first time I remember it was because I had three months between the end of high school and college and a had a lot of time to read and think in my hands. I was trying to decide between Engineering and Medicine for my undergrad studies. Obviously the only two socially acceptable choices for a girl my age growing up in India. I happened to read the book called “Roots” by Alex Hailey. Beautiful book, it’s about Kunta Kinte, an African captured and enslaved and brought to the US and his descendants. When I read the book, in addition to the inhumanity of slavery, the next thing that struck me was the fleeting nature of human life. The author would talk about one generation till they were older and then move on to the next generation as if the previous generation never existed. This impacted me tremendously as it made me think of what I really wanted to do in my life before I became irrelevant. I realized that I wanted to pursue my passion to create things in scale and do computer science. It was a drip by drip of the obvious that came to me over 30 days.

That conviction caused by my thinking through the situation gave me the strength to resist the collective willpower of my extended family and neighbors as I stood my ground against going to medical school. “But this is what you want to do!” “Do you know how lucky you are to get in?” “Who would ever reject a medicine seat?” “Dr. Deepa, eh? Has a nice ring to it, no?”. I knew what I wanted and I had made up my mind. I knew that I need to be able to live with my decisions.

The second time was much later in life during which I had a successful career in Fintech and thought that that is what I would do for the rest of my life. And why not? Fintech was booming, there is always money in ‘Fin’, the world that I knew so well and was like a fish in water. Why wouldn’t I continue doing it? Then came the nagging question, ‘what do you want? what you really, really want?’ Initially, all I knew was that this didn’t seem like this is what I wanted. What I really wanted came to me slowly, over days and months on the train ride to and from work.

I realized that I Ioved the ‘tech’ part of ‘fintech’ way more than the ‘fin’ part of it. I realized that all my intrapreneurship activities at work were all focused on people related tech initiatives. I realized that what I had become really good at – crisis management, fire-fighting was something I fundamentally objected to doing that as a standard practice. I wanted to do just the opposite of what I was so good at. I wanted to be proactive and help companies to be proactive about creating their future. I realized that I love creating more than just fixing things.

Then there was only one decision for me – to start my company, Zinda. This time the drip of the obvious built up over months, one little aha moment at a time.

Now, back to my original question. Have you ever asked yourself that question? And actually listened to the answer from yourself?  And be patient with yourself?

 You might be surprised at what you discover – from within yourself.