I complete 20 years as a working professional this month, this is a rear view look. Times change and what applied to me may no longer be applicable now but felt it as a good exercise to look back and pen down the themes. 20s is the age that you feel you are invincible and have a seemingly long future outlook, that gives us a feeling that the 20s will last forever. This makes us subconsciously go for things that only cater to the present but create a harder one for the future self.To give an idea about how times change, let us see cost of living – gold was 10 times cheaper 20 years ago, which means buying a 100cc bike like Hero Splendour was an achievement, it retailed at 48,000 rupees. A salary of 4,000 was adequate for me to start my career.

Luck is a factor on how big we can make it. I ended with a good job only because I went to meet a friend whom I hadn’t met for a long time and he had arrived at my town for an interview, I went along with him. Walk in interviews had 1,000+ people waiting outside the gate at 7 AM to be let in for a 9 AM interview. That is how bad the outlook was for the first job if not placed through campus placements, it was extremely hard. The interviewers do not have the time to sift through so many profiles and find us, irrespective how well prepared we are or how skilled we are. How to increase the luck? The only way to increase is through serendipity – showing up more at places, connecting with a lot of people, have varied interests. Once our foot is in the door, only then the skills get applicable. Throughout the career, this keeps repeating for me.

Once I got the job, I felt that going all out on tech skills will be my forte. I used to take pride that people see me as a wizard who gets a lot of things done. Within a few years I had hit a plateau of what I can accomplish individually. I was putting in more and more effort without moving the needle on the performance indicators. I fell sick often in the pursuit and it caused more setbacks. It is when one of my mentors pointed out on how to become a multiplier instead of being a standalone maker. I had to rewire my ways of working and learn what puts me up in the next level. One of them was communication skills which was a bottomless pit to get skilled on – presentation, interpersonal, spoken and written english, non verbal, feedback on and on. The rule was simple, if I am on a team, the entire team’s productivity should go up.

The invincible 20s mindset, makes us feel that we can go at break neck speed, consume anything, don’t rest and yet still manage to survive. All the years of neglect suddenly manifests one day as a bolt from the truth. A major problem I had is that I did not eat and sleep well in my early days of career. After a point it was a constant repeat of medicines, physiotherapy and poor health until I figured out nutrition and exercise. A sound body creates a sound mind.

The more later you learn skills like driving, language, music, cooking the more difficult it becomes due to the time commitment needed get to a basic level. As we move up the life ladder and start a family, time flies and hard to set aside any time for learning new things that require commitment. Cross discipline learning is very important along with life skills, learning never stops but it becomes easy when you start early. Often times you will hit a plateau in the career, it requires a change in the way in which we work and learn that needs extra effort. Example moving from an individual contributor to lead, a lead to an expert, an expert to an org leader etc. Before making the jump enjoy the plateau for a while but don’t settle there.

When speaking about time, the best investments I have made are the ones that help me save time. Fully automatic washing machine/dryer combo, electric cookware where you can program and set timers are to name a few. I made the mistake of buying status symbols first before coming to terms to reality. The amount of time that gets saved by delegating away is huge.

About savings, I was poor like everyone else with savings. I thought property is the biggest savings and went all in as one stop investment. What it made me was to be afraid to try new things so that I won’t lose the steady stream of income. Living paycheck to paycheck is a very difficult situation and makes you put up with toxic workplaces or makes you risk averse. I did not try my hand on starting a business on my own because of the huge loan bills I had to pay every month. Best form of savings/investments are something that you can pause or redeem when needed, not locked up in real estate through a loan. Car and bikes are a spend not an investment.

Recap – Luck plays a major role in what we are today; being a team player matters; communications skills can never be enough; body and mind keeps score, take good care of it; invest on things that saves time; learn as much as possible early in the career including life skills; understand financial resilience and actively pursue it.

Don’t regret anything, just fix the future