The Story of My Professional Life
(Updated on 8th April, 2026. This page is a work in progress and the deadline to complete it is December 31, 2026)
This page is an attempt to document my professional life—not as a record of achievements, but as a story.
I am not applying for a job. This is not a CV.
A CV captures outcomes.
This page attempts to capture:
- the decisions behind those outcomes
- the failures that never make it to paper
- and the ideas that shaped how I think about work
If a CV is a summary that aims to impress, this is a narrative that aims to connect.
My Professional Life Story in 7 Chapters
After several failed attempts to structure this, I’ve borrowed Dan P. McAdams's instructions on how to share a life story (hat tip to Graham Duncan). I share McAdam's instructions below for your benefit:
Please begin by thinking about your life as if it were a book or novel. Imagine that the book has a table of contents containing the titles of the main chapters in the story. To begin here, please describe very briefly what the main chapters in the book might be. Please give each chapter a title, tell me just a little bit about what each chapter is about, and say a word or two about how we get from one chapter to the next. You may have as many chapters as you want, but I would suggest having between about two and seven of them.
What follows is a working table of contents. Each line will eventually become a full post before the end of the year.
Chapter 1: Childhood
This chapter is about the foundations. I didn't realize how much of my professional life was influenced by my childhood. This is also when I became acutely aware of how different I was.
1. Curiosity & learning > Marks
2. Competence & Compassion
3. Showing UP
4. Age > Gender/Sex
5. Husbands are always older than wives
6. Earn your pocket money
Chapter 2: College
1. Culture Shock
2. Exposure Vs. Expertise
3. Language matters
4. Taking Initiative - first job
5. Change is hard
Chapter 3: Cognizant
1. Cog in the Wheel
2. Process
3. Coordination is the challenge
4. Money transcends Culture
Chapter 4: Social Sector in India
1. There is so much to learn
2. Professional progress is guaranteed even if impact is not
3. Non-profits - Are they effective and efficient?
Chapter 5: Social Sector in the US & Africa
1. Values > Work
2. Learning by Osmosis
3. Development at the speed of thought
4. Incentives to be a consultant
5. Quarter life crisis
Chapter 6: Building from Scratch
I fully embraced and accepted that I was different but that doesn't make me wrong.
1. Build and they will come
2. Impact Investing seems like a scam
3. Sociopaths or Psychopaths
4. Impact is possible
5. Where/who is your A-team?
6. Don't build for all.
7. Sex and the social sector
Chapter 7: Future
1. What I want to build—and why