Pursuit of Purpose.
A few months ago when I decided to take a leap of faith and pivot from an active founder role to an advisory role at my start-ups in pursuit of a bigger dream little did I know life will take me here.
The start-ups I have breathed in and out for the last decade continue to grow and scale, while I decided to pick up which would satisfy my inner desire to do & serve more, and of course, the support of my husband cum partner in this decision was beyond words could say.
(Lesson – Support from your inner circle is invaluable, invest in it. Like everything else, wherever you water it grows.)
So I decided to take this plunge but to do what I had no clue.
I was open to going back into the corporate job culture provided the work was challenging enough. But I rarely came across HR’s and recruiters who would look beyond their microscopic lens of CTCs and locations and work-ex in years in comparison to more openness and appreciation towards a start-up founder and their journey.
Not generalizing though, few that I came across played a pivotal role in making me understand Who am I and helping this story carve out for the 2nd innings of my career.
In this pursuit of self and post a hyperactive decade-long career, this free time and especially in the times of covid-19 gave me a lot of sleepless nights.
What is it that would inspire me more?
I saw my delta in social development, small businesses, strategy & marketing, and start-ups scale and growth with a particular affinity towards product-based startups. But where could I find a role that could be an amalgamation of all these and more?
I also realized that to a person like myself, my work has been my definition and Who am I if not defined by What I do?
Thankfully, I came across someone who helped me differentiate between the two and I was able to reduce my pressure on myself. I had none from anyone else. In hindsight, this pressure also always kept me focused on finding my purpose.
Good and bad, this time enabled me to be happier and content with myself at my own time and pace.
Lesson – Maybe as women we are wired to be very hard on ourselves. I recommend easing that out. I shouldn’t have been.
Somewhere in this journey, I stumbled upon fiftycoffees.com by Lindsay Ratowsky.
A unique approach of having 52 coffees/conversations with diverse people in the journey of big life transition events to gain perspectives. Simply put, 1 coffee every week in a year with diverse people from whom one can learn, gain knowledge, and exchange ideas.
So I started talking loud about this process and questions which entangled me.
I reached out to people in my network and beyond to discuss, talk and get their perspectives. I was not able to log these experiences as Lindsay did, but maintained paper notes I could always refer back to while on this journey.
Lesson: I realized that maybe I was looking at closed windows too hard and asking a fish to fly, literally with my initial thoughts. This exercise gave me a lot of perspective. I strongly recommend it if you are in a similar boat.
So, some 10 coffees and a lot of research later…
It satisfies me that I found the right direction, and finding our purpose is a long journey.
And so we established KH Advisory, with an aim to work with fellow start-ups as a strategic partner & Business Advisor and Consultant to help them grow and scale their businesses and hence increase our impact footprint. My experience as a start-up founder and an inclination to build and grow brands digitally led with design, strategy, and marketing is where… I finally found my purpose.
So, if you are looking for some help there. Do reach out for an engaging conversation!
PS: I intend to continue with the 52 coffees project and keep learning and refining, if that interests you too then do reach out, and let’s have a cup of coffee together!
