Annual Review 2022: 12 Months of No Job!

⚡️ 27th November 2021, Just another Saturday night in the city of Gurgaon, 2 friends decided to take their first BIG career/life decision: "No Job in 2022"

From the Highest of Highs to the Lowest of Lows, 2022 has given us everything. Starting with a clean slate and following the voices of heart & intuition has made us go through some of the Darkest Times of Self-doubt & Terrifying Uncertainty, but has rewarded us with a Real Personal Transformation!

This blog is my humble attempt to take you through 12 months of our Journey.

Hope it gives you a little push toward your own voices! ✨

Life by Default vs Life by Design

January - August 2021: Me & Chetan, a batchmate from college, had been placed into American Express & Delhivery through the coveted Placement Cell from IIT Bombay. High-paying jobs with a decent level of Work-Life balance immediately changed our whole life. For the first time now, since being kids at an engineering college, we had real 'Freedom'.

1st Year of 'Job' life was just a fairytale for me. Making full use of the 'Work From Home' paradigm, I traveled across the country (almost 50 cities), working from everywhere. (More on this experience later!)

Despite this 'Perfect' life of Travel & Work, something in my mind constantly started nagging me. Turns out, around the very same time, Chetan started getting this feeling too. On one of our calls, I remember us discussing (read overthinking) the 'Relationship' we have with work - "Where is this going!?"

Now, that's a really tough question to think about, isn't it?

For a while, the question stayed with us. We couldn't really go back to the honeymoon phase because now the relationship with work was complicated.

The 3 Questions of Life

Naval Ravikant (who would become our supreme guru on wealth), through his book "Almanack of Naval Ravikant" gave us the 'Not So Easy' reality check!

There are 3 questions that determine your life at any given point:

1. Where do you live?
2. What work do you do?
3. Who do you spend the most time with?

As I reflected upon these questions, I came to realize that the answers to at least 2 of the questions haven't really been 'Chosen' by me. They've been handed down to me 'By Default'.

As Humans, we have been gifted with the unique powers of Self-Awareness & Visualisation. We can use these powers to Rescript & Curate our Life into this Masterpiece that We would Love to Live!

For 3 months, these concepts kept growing stronger in my head. Everything I did just brought me back to the same 3 questions & the fact that I hadn't Proactively Chosen the life I was living. My Life was NOT by Design!

The Big Decision: Taking the Leap

⏩ October 2021, 1.5 yrs into my job, is when I finally got my moment of clarity!

On a Long Walk (I use these walks to clear my head! It works!), I entered into a thought process and came back with 2 decisions in my head.

1. I Will Immediately Quit my Job
2. I Will 'Not' Take up a Job in 2022

As soon as I said these decisions out loud to myself, I just knew that I could never go back. Nothing Ever Felt So Right! I submitted my resignation the very next day.

⏩ November 2021, serving the last 1 month of the notice period, I came to Gurgaon, in preparation for the last trip of 2021 to Himachal with a very close college friends group.

⚡️ 27th November 2021: Chetan & Me were seated on a 'Machaan' on the outskirts of the city. The topic was again the same. But this time, I had real Clarity!

I 'pitched' the reasoning behind my thought process, and within 15 mins of starting this 'Tough' Conversation, he had written in his Diary: "No Job in 2022"

Right at that moment, we knew! The Story Starts Now!

On this last trip to Himachal that I mentioned above, I got a chance to really 'Visualise' this "Life with No Job". The serene climate of Jibhi and the comfort of Notice Period gave me the perfect setting to just imagine!

A voice inside me, out of nowhere, said "Let's Move to Bangalore!"

(I didn't know then, what a Stellar role this voice will play going forward)

So, I listened to it! And I followed it!

Welcome to Bangalore

⏩ January 19th 2022: Me & Chetan arrived in Bangalore. We booked an Executive Suite through Airbnb for the first 1 month. Both of us had done a lot of thinking leading up to it in December & we had a 'Mission Statement' Document to guide us in our journey. My timeline looked like this:

(Context: 'Hostel Project' was my plan to start a Backpacker Hostel of my own. This dream was inspired by my newly found love for travel)

Okay, so we were here in Bangalore & both of us had the same goal to begin: "Crack the GMAT Exam". Now, since we had a really good track record with cracking exams (...we're both from IIT Bombay so...), we were really confident/pumped up about the GMAT as well. But in contrast to previous times, this time we had the teachings of 2 amazing books (Almanack of Naval Ravikant & 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) ingrained with us.

We came up with this super intense Interdependent model routine for 2 guys to include studying & the 3 processes of super-charged personal growth. (Move-Reflect-Grow)

It wasn't easy, but we managed to pull off this hyper-disciplined routine for a complete 1 month! We worked out, meditated, read books, and put in the 6-8 hours/day for GMAT prep. Also, we procured groceries, prepared and cooked our own meals, and washed the dishes ourselves. Was kinda fun!

Then one Friday Morning, 11th February 2022

It had been a tough week as I had just started giving Mock GMAT Exams. I gave 5 exams that week in 5 days, and I scored Poorly in every single one of them! This signaled a proper Burnout. Just then,

A voice inside me, out of nowhere, said "I have to Travel Again!"

So, I listened to it! And I followed it!

I opened the Redbus app at 2 pm and booked the only seat available on that Friday night to the city of Gokarna. Little did I know, this one move would entirely change the trajectory of my Bangalore journey!

I had booked my stay at Hostelit, a backpacker hostel in the vicinity of the Main Beach. Early on that Saturday morning, I reached the hostel, settled into my dorm & decided to go out and get some fresh beach air. As soon as I got out, I saw a group of people who also seemed to have arrived the same morning. So, with the Traveller's etiquette that I had developed over the past 1 year, I went ahead and introduced myself to them.

Hi, I'm Charith!

Charith Kashyap, CEO of Selvitate.com, TedX speaker was the first person in the line. I had missed this part of travel the most over the past few months: Meeting Amazing people. "What do you do?" is usually the first question that drives the conversation in meetings like this. So we started with the same. And I tried to explain my journey to someone for the first time, after Chetan.

Luckily, Charith found my story interesting & we continued our conversation from one topic to the next. Lots of interesting stories from the startup world had me completely hooked and I was in awe of the things he had done. The typical 'Charith Charisma' was doing its part too. So, I became a part of Charith's group for the next 2 days, enjoying my Gokarna outing with some really great people.

When it was time to part, I was elated to find out that these guys are from Bangalore itself. I was sure I would re-connect with them probably after GMAT.

Within the next 4 months, Charith Kashyap would introduce me for the first time to the world of Startups, to his amazing network in Bangalore, and, along with his business partner, Ruthvic Gowda, become a "Co-founder" with me on my first Attempt to build a startup of my own!

Yet again, Listening to the voices of my heart & intuition had paid off big time. All my "Logic" would have blatantly denied me to book these expensive tickets to Gokarna. But today, in hindsight, I'm extremely glad I didn't give logic the chance!

Coming back to Bangalore!

It was GAME ON as soon as I was back. An interesting conversation with my Mom gave me the push to just 'Book the date for the exam'. That's exactly what I did. I scheduled my GMAT for the 1st of March 2022. This meant I Had just 2-3 weeks time before I attempt the exam.

1st March 2022: I've already received a lot of ridicule for this, so might as well own it up now. I forgot to take my Passport to the exam, which is an essential requirement, and hence couldn't appear for the exam. So after a weird day of being existential, energetic & sad at the same time (Yeah! it is possible!), I booked the exam date again for 31st March.

31st March 2022: On the last day of Q1 2022, I gave the GMAT exam. All the work that I had put in was going to be tested on this day. Early Morning at 8 am, I left for the exam center. 4 hours later, At Noon, Not believing what I was seeing, I had the exam report in my hand. It read, GMAT SCORE: 760/800!!!

Top 1 Percentile Score on the GMAT marked the end of the quarter & I thought I was well and truly on my way to all my 'Mission Statement' Goals!

The Apartment Hunt

For the first time in my life, it was time to 'Rent' an apartment! After living a nomadic 'Life out of a suitcase' for more than 18 months, I was psyched to finally have a place of my own in the city. Badminton, Dance & A Full Physical Wardrobe! I dreamt about it all as I started browsing Nobroker, Justdial & Flat & Flatmates.

Well if there ever is a 'Tough' Problem in this world, it's finding a 'Good Apartment' in Bangalore. And I just had my mind set on finding a 3Bhk only, cause I need a 'Big home', Period! Out of sheer luck though, one of my iconic Hostel seniors from IIT Bombay, Prasad Arak, had arrived in Bangalore at the same time & was looking to settle down for a while. Just like that, I had my first Flatmate!

I spent 3-4 weeks toiling hard on the streets of Bangalore. After visiting ~50 apartments, ALMOST finalising 3 of them, Me & Prasad finally found our place!

A Clean Slate!

1st May 2022: GMAT was done & I had settled into Bangalore in a great apartment at a very good location. It was time to start again! But where?

After being a 'Science' Student all my life, I was looking to start afresh in the world of Business with no experience, no knowledge, and no background. This was like starting a Life 2.0, where all previous paradigms have become Null & Void. But, I had one precious habit going for me, "Reading Books". It has been the Single Most important factor in everything that I've been able to do this year!

So, starting off with Hyper-Logical Intellectualization of what should I do now, I came up with 2 projects for myself!

1. 💻 Understanding Products: Having absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about creating products, I decided I would take up this project and consistently dedicate time every day to just reading about and understanding products. I identified sources of information that I would read up on & created a whole project plan for consuming this information.
   
2. 💫 Unboxing Startups: Again, Having absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the history of startups & what goes into building them, I decided I just had to read up a lot more about the ecosystem. But I had no starting point. So just like a tech nerd would do, I said, "I would make a list of all industries, figure out the distribution of money in those industries, shortlist some of them & then read about ~100 startups in those industries!". The hope was that doing this would give me the direction into where I could start when the time comes!

These 2 projects served their own unique purposes for me. Unboxing Startups was going to give me the Answer to "What is the Idea?" & Understanding Products would empower me to answer "Can you Execute?".

By now, Chetan had now moved temporarily back to his home in Delhi and was going through the last phase of his GMAT journey. He was to appear for the exam in 4-6 weeks & then come back to Bangalore. So, rather than starting to work on something, these 2 projects seemed perfect for a 2 month period. I would work on fundamentals till he comes back. Then, we'll start working on something!

Into the Startup World!

Meanwhile, since I was done with GMAT, I got in touch with Charith (The Gokarna guy) in Bangalore & we almost continued where we had left things. We discussed a lot more about startups & businesses, and I was introduced to this beautiful and complex world.

Charith had (has!) a wonderful network of driven & awesome people with multiple startups running within the circle. I talked to people & even did a freelance Market research project with Pipecycle, an upcoming CRM solutions company.

Towards the end of May, I took a vacation with my family and was again in the blessed land of Himachal when Charith added me to a Whatsapp group. He called me immediately after saying, "I'm starting a Product company with a bunch of people, and I just want you to be a part of the journey. So I've added you to the group".

This marked the beginning of Rekonsile.com in my life!

2 Stories, 2 Massive Buildups!

Story #1: Chetan gave his GMAT and absolutely killed it with a score of 770! We had planned to reconvene in Hoegaarden starting Q3, to figure out what we're gonna be working on next. But we did one more thing, we called up two more college friends to Bangalore, who had quit their jobs and were in the 'Figuring things out' stage of their careers. Thus within the first 2 weeks of Q3, 4 unemployed guys & Prasad started living in Hoegaarden. The plan was to 'Figure out if we could work together" on something & if so, "What would that be"!

Story #2: I attended the first meeting of Rekonsile.com during the same time, and within the first two weeks, Charith offered me a position as the 'Co-Founder' of the company! After 1 full quarter of reading up on startups, I had a real opportunity to get into the game and show what I had got! There was no question of me denying such a huge opportunity & hence, I jumped onto it. So the journey of Rekonsile.com started in my life. The plan was to 'Build a SaaS product solution to automate E-commerce marketplace reconciliations'.

My Daily Life in Q3, thus changed drastically as compared to Q2. From being alone in a 3bhk studying about products & startups, now it was time to go to the field with real-life games. Both stories were extremely important to me. On one side was the proposition of 'Building a life with my closest of friends' and on the other side was 'Building a product in a huge industry with people I really believed in!'.

First Attempt at Making Money

What's the first thing you do to kick off a new life in a new place? There's only one answer! A Housewarming party!

Now we definitely weren't going to be the guys who would have an average Housewarming party. We would be the guys who did the 'Best Housewarming Party Ever' in Bangalore. So, we polled in funds, revamped the entire house, conceptualized a kickass party & started working towards an event that 'People would remember Forever!'

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A post shared by Chetan Sharma (@chetan_idkk)

23rd July 2022: 30 people from diverse areas, all sorts of cross connections & the impeccable weather of the city made our House-warming party a solid success! We enjoyed positive feedback from almost everyone, along with a set of really cute housewarming gifts <3

2 days later, I received an email that confirmed that IIT was organizing a 'Mini-Convocation' for all the people who graduated remotely during Covid times. It was such happy news, as I hadn't been to my beloved 'Insti' since the lockdown times of 2020. I talked with a couple of friends and immediately booked my ticket to Mumbai!

Where do we stay?: This simple question popped into my head the moment my ticket was booked. Everyone was either figuring out a 'Jugaad' to live with a junior inside IIT, or booking a small place for a night outside. But what fun is it to book a small, just good enough place?

Convocation Party 2022: Being in the emotional hangover of an amazing event, I thought, "Since people would want to spend time together, and would otherwise just form groups and do the normal pub thing, why not arrange a similar event for all convocating people? We have a proven model & it adds real value to people. Only this time, we'll take it to the next step and try to monetize it!"

The Party got real in my head within 24 hours and with every passing minute, I started visualizing more and more things. Doing a robe/hat ceremony, Clicking Portraits, A Mini-valfi! I couldn't be more excited to meet the people who shared a class with me throughout 5 years of college.

We didn't have a lot of time and pulling off such an event for ~50 people was going to be a hell of a task. Rekonsile also was gathering pace at this time, so I was stretched to my absolute maximum. Planning the organizational systems for the startup in the day and planning the convocation party otherwise. Everything seemed to be going perfectly until one fateful day.

Challenge, Breakthrough, Clarity!

30th July 2022: Exactly a week before the party, this day was probably the single most defining day of the entire year. I made major leaps in both stories. We, as a group of friends, were pulling off our first real event! It was a major compatibility test to 'Figure out if we could work together'. On the other hand, I completed the first MVP version of our product at Rekonsile.com & we took an important decision to focus on one vertical going forward. At the same time, for both sides, 'Concrete Systems' were designed to ensure that we continue at the same pace!

To celebrate all of this, we booked a slot on the cricket turf next to our home.

2 hours later, I was in a wheelchair, in the cold emergency reception hall of Fortis hospital, only to realize that I was now facing the biggest challenge ever of my life!

Everything changed post that '5 seconds of Adrenaline rush' on the turf. I had a 90% tear in my right knee ACL ligament. It was certain now that, for a while I wasn't going to be able to spend any time on Rekonsile.com and I was going to miss my one chance at Convocation too 🥲. The fact that I had an entire party planned that night just added to the misery!

Luckily, these awesome people whom I can proudly call 'Flatmates', Chetan & Akshay agreed to take up the mantle of the Convocation party on my behalf. They would go on my behalf to execute the party which I had ideated. On 6th August, the day of Convocation, my guys pulled off the party while I endured a plethora of 'Nostalgic' emotions about missing the 1 Day I had always dreamed of!

20th Aug 2022: I went through the 'ACL Reconstruction' surgery. Thankfully I did not have any Meniscal damage, which meant it would be 7-8 weeks of physiotherapy before I can walk on 2 legs again.

These 8 weeks redefined a lot of things in life. Not being able to walk forced me to spend a LOT of time with my own thoughts & books. I questioned every decision I had made, struggled a lot with the 'Why' behind things & even became existential once in a while. But it gave me a lot of answers! And after building up on both stories, it was time for the beat drop!

Longest Night Ever: Last week of August, the buildup in Hoegaarden was at its peak. Events were done, and we (Akshay, Chetan & Me) had a good sense of how 'Working together' would look like, but we had ZERO clarity on 'What Next'. With this background, we sat together on this Thursday night with a beer in hand, to casually start talking. This time though, we kept talking, till 7 am in the morning! Through the night, we forced every one of us to take the whiteboard and explain the answer to the question "What do you really want in life?"

All of us put forward a vision, no matter how grey & unclear, but completely transparent on the table. And through a series of really tough and uncomfortable conversations, we finally landed up with Clarity!

Verdict: While 'Founding Matrimony' (Relationship between founders) is Extremely Important when starting a Startup/Business Venture, there is one More Important fundamental factor. You need to have a common & aligned 'Vision' towards an end goal.

We came to this HARD realization that there isn't a common vision that we share right now. Compounding on this, we also DO NOT share complimentary skill sets. Hence, at this point, it 'Does NOT make sense for us to Start-up!'

This clarity of thought changed the paradigm for us living together. It was uncomfortable for 7 days. But then things started changing again, we had 3 massive conceptual breakthroughs. Even though the origins live in Q3, it was in the next quarter that we really brought these concepts to life!

By October 2022, Story #1 had played out almost completely. Story #2, Rekonsile.com was put on hold after my ACL injury. It would remain so till the beginning of December when things came back to life. Till then, our home, with this renewed sense of clarity found an awesome sense of direction with 3 concepts.

1. The Journey of a Minimalist Entrepreneur: During this time, Chetan read the book, Minimalist Entrepreneur, by Sahil Lavingia, the founder of Gumroad. It provided us with a proper framework to go about our journey of entrepreneurship. Instead of playing the VC game of Startups, which is all about playing the game of 'Growth' using capital, a Minimalist Entrepreneur takes the route of 'Sustainability' with a focus on profitability. This also conformed perfectly with our decision to 'Build in Public'. The journey looks like this:

The entire journey resonated with us to our core and we decided that this actually is the way we want our entrepreneur journeys to look. You can read a much more detailed explanation of this, written by Chetan: The Minimalist Entrepreneur

2. OKR/ Measure What Matters: Sridhar, one of my mentors throughout 2022, recommended me John Doerr's book, Measure What Matters. John terms it as a 'Simple Idea that drives 10x growth'. OKRs gave me a whole new outlook on goal setting and solved a fundamental problem that had been eternally existent in the way I looked at things.

Like most people, throughout this one year, I made the mistake of making all my plans Top-Down (To think about the long-term result that you want and break it down into smaller tasks till you arrive today!). The utter and complete failure of the 'Mission Statement' I came to Bangalore with is a classic example of this problem. Of all the pointers I had aimed to achieve, only GMAT was achieved.

Now, even though the experiences I actually went through were undoubtedly worth gold, it doesn't take away the fact that the Mission Statement failed miserably.

Measure What Matters, as a principle, gave me the philosophical solution to this problem. Through the OKRs framework, I understood how to find the sweet spot between Top-Down & Bottom-up goal setting. Within the first 30 days of implementing OKRs into my life, I found a remarkable change in the quantity & quality of my work output. You can read more about my experience here: Art of Execution: How OKRs changed my Life

3. Second Brain: First introduced by one of Ali Abdaal's productivity videos, I found the concept of the Second brain pretty interesting. So picked up the original book, Building a Second Brain, by Tiago Forte and the book changed my entire perception of the relationship between creativity & productivity.

"Human Minds are for Having ideas, Not Holding them" - David Allen

We live in the age of information, where most of us are 'Knowledge workers", i.e most of our jobs include Procuring Information -> Processing Information -> Presenting Information. The concept of a 'Second brain' through the C.O.D.E framework gives an awesome system to manage the information around you.

Combining the best practices of proven artists, and based on the philosophy that remembering things is not the job of our brain, 'Building a Second Brain' gives our Human brain a chance to step down from the role of 'Information Treasurer' and take up the job it is meant to do: 'Become the CEO of you!'

I immediately organized my life around a Second brain, and just like OKRs, it gave me a massive boost in 'Effectiveness'. Along with enhanced creativity, my mental health improved significantly as I knew all information around me is curated & available at my fingertips whenever I want. Work felt more like Play than ever!

Concrete directions, Finally!

After a phase of absolute uncertainty, these 3 breakthroughs finally gave us concrete directions to life. Me, Chetan & Akshay started on 3 independent journeys.

1. Chetan launched his own website and decided to take up the GMAT exam & Building a Life Operating System (2 topics of his Genuine Intellectual Curiosity) as areas to develop processes where he would add value to a certain select set of people.
2. Akshay decided he wanted to continue working in the world of startups and along with another IITB batchmate of ours, Anirudh, founded the company DailyBhojan. They are building a really cool SaaS solution for Bangalore's tiffin provider companies to streamline their operations!
3. I also launched my website and decided to take up OKRs & Second brain as areas to start developing processes. Incidentally, Prasad, the original flatmate at Hoegaarden, would become my first client. He had planned to resume studying in his attempt to crack the UPSC exam. I saw how the combination of OKRs & Second brain would dramatically increase the effectiveness of his preparation.

Toughest decision of my life

All phases of 2022 carried with them the weight of decisions that we had made. But one decision was the toughest of them all: Rekonsile.com

I continued working on the one business vertical we had decided to focus on, post my injury. I understood a lot more about the problem at heart & with some insights from the US market, I actually came up with a strategy for the startup that would win in the market! I discussed the strategy with Charith & Ruthvic, my co-founders and they believed that I was onto something.

So, we were gearing up to build our product in that direction. We discussed in depth, who our actual customers were, and came up with this 2.0 version of the product, where we would build a product for accountants.

But, after Minimalist Entrepreneur's journey came into our lives, I was perennially divided on what my involvement with Rekonsile.com would be like. I am a firm believer in the twin prongs of Focus & Intensity when taking up any project in my life.

So it essentially boiled down to an actual choice: Either 'Become the 'Co-Founder' at a great startup company' or 'Become a Minimalist Entrepreneur'!

The decision was VERY troubling. But I had to listen to my voice! The same voice that had guided me throughout this journey. My love for Travel, and the value created by OKRs + Second brain resonated with me to the deepest of levels. And my Heart and Intuition told me that I HAVE to continue on the journey to explore them.

So, I decided to step down as the 'Co-founder' of Rekonsile.com

Reflecting back

⚡️ 27th November 2021, Just another Saturday night in the city of Gurgaon, 2 friends decided to take their first BIG career/life decision: "No Job in 2022"

Me & Chetan, started off this 'Life by Design' in Bangalore. There's only one mantra that we have constantly tried to live by.

"Have the courage to follow your Heart & Intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become" - Steve Jobs

Every time we had an 'Aha' moment & made the next plans accordingly, the plan failed! It almost became a certainty that 'Plans are just made to fail'. But we kept listening to our voices. From being two clueless guys out in search of glory to being two highly self-aware guys who now know what mission drives them, We actually have come a long way!

What comes Next?

The Year of Risk Maximisation has now come to an end. The next year, we are going to go ALL IN on the Minimalist Entrepreneur journey.

My verticals are going to remain the same. For a variety of new use cases, I'm going to experiment with the twin concepts of OKRs and Second Brain. Towards these last few weeks of December, I've already ideated 5-10 more applications where I believe exponential and effective results can be achieved through these simple yet awesomely powerful tools/philosophies.

But One thing shall remain the same!

I will still continue to listen to the voice of heart & intuition. I truly believe it is the purest way to build this truly amazing life that I would love to live <3

Hey again, this is Aditya! Thank you for reading this!

If we share this obsession over Execution & Productivity, I'd love to hear from you! Please hit me up on LinkedIn /Instagram or subscribe to get these blogs right in your inbox!

I am in this journey to explore and build on my obsession with Travel, Innovation, Marketing & Execution. I invite you to join me in this journey!

Oh, And One more thing...

⏪ November 2020: I was backpacking through Goa as Corporate_musafir and had planned to spend New-Years on one of those beach parties. On a random trip to Arambol's Sweet Water Lake, I met this amazing human, Krishna Mehta

We never talked again for 2 years, but technology and Instagram kept us in each other's feeds. We re-connected in Bangalore and suddenly realized that both of us have the hearts of Travellers and in the grand scheme of things, we are only in Bangalore to serve our time in the cities.

⏩ While planning this 'Life by Design', going forward, I believe in making the designs 'One year at a time'. 2021 was the year of Travel & 2022 was the year of Startups. It's exactly the time to reevaluate the 3 Fundamental questions!

🙃 See where I am going with this ....