How do you unlock your best professional life?

I finished a decade (!!) of working in June 2019. It feels like yesterday that I was fooling around in college without any clue and care of what’s next. I have some time today to write and reflect on the last 10 years —

• In my final year of college I volunteered to be a placement coordinator. I was required to welcome employers, entertain the team over a free lunch (big win at that time), help them with interviews, GD’s. The first company that came to campus was D.E.Shaw & Co. — a US headquartered hedge fund offering some good $$. No one really cared about what the job profile was. We did not understand anything beyond ‘finance’ anyway. The first round was a GD and I remember organising rooms. As the first group came in, I noticed that a girl I was fond of was also part of the group. I immediately put another chair and joined the group. I ended up getting selected for the interview and finally got an offer as well. (the girl did not make it, in case you were wondering :/)
• I joined D.E Shaw after college and worked there for 2 years. Met some amazing people who continue to be close friends and made amazing memories.
• The world of startups was just starting up at that time. A friend saw a post on facebook from a company called Foodiebay (now Zomato, this was 2011). I had quit Shaw and applied for an interview and eventually got hired into the sales team. I was required to meet restaurant owners and convince them to purchase advertising space on our website. I loved it. I ended up staying for almost 3 years and the learning was insane.
• The startup bug had bitten me and I was dying to start something of my own. In 2014, I quit Zomato and, along with a friend, started a company called PressPlay. Another friend from school made me meet his boss for funding $$. Things worked out and we had a mad ride filled with insane highs and heart breaking lows for 3+ years.
• During my time at PressPlay, I got a chance to meet with some fellow entrepreneurs. One person I met was Kunal Shah (freecharge, cred). No we did not hit it off and are not friends but he was kind enough to forward my CV to the team at freecharge after I mailed him in 2017. PressPlay had shut down and I was looking for my next job. I should have taken a break but was desperate to bounce back. I ended up joining freecharge and stayed for 14 months.
• Early 2018, Deepinder from Zomato got back in touch. We met and spoke about Zomato Gold and I re-joined the team in Feb 2018 and have been part of Zomato since then.

All these companies, positions, teams were a crazy mix of fun and learning and I will hopefully write about each of the experiences in detail soon. But today I want to focus on what shaped my last 10 years. Looking back, be it the girl in college, the friend in Shaw who saw the opening at Zomato, school friend at PressPlay who connected us with our first investor, Kunal who forwarded my almost cold email — my career has been 100% shaped by people and chance connections. Knowingly and unknowingly they are responsible for where I am and what I do today.

I feel blessed that I was lucky enough to have a strong group of people around me who were always there whenever I needed help and guidance. I wonder if everyone is as lucky. My guess would be a no. It’s amazing how we don’t invest more time in building a strong network or group of folks who will help open new opportunities. The old networking events are passe and definitely not helpful for introverts like me, Linkedin is spammy and full of noise.

Even in this day and age when tech enables everything we still don’t have tools or platforms that will help us unlock our best professional life.