Power of the Compound Effect

good afternoon everyone thanks for the

intro

the year was 2003 when my parents gifted

me the first personal computer

the 13 year old in me was happy

was so happy it was a prized possession

it was an

asset which i had always desired for

and with the personal computer at all it

unlocked a few weird things in me as

well

i got access to a lot of things notably

this tool called photoshop i’m sure

you’ve heard of it

i would use that and remove the

background of our digital photos

add text clipart and then i would build

them on a4 sheets

and make greeting cards out of them

i would also proudly present all those

masterpieces

as gifts to my friends and relatives

i still remember the day it was really

good

i was so obsessed with my computer i

loved my computer so much

and i didn’t even realize that by making

it

that by making those greeting cards i

had actually made my tv steps

into design a skill over which i would

literally build my career

but back then i didn’t have an iota or

doubt

as to what i would have to do in the

future as a career

the day according to iit madras i was

the happiest again

the happiest any teenager from an

indian middle class family

life seemed so sorted it felt that the

future was bright

well why not i was in one of the most

premier colleges of india

and i deserve to have that feeling

indeed it is a temple of learning and

everything and every person

inside the campus would instill you to

do something new

each and every time

so i also got into the business of

learning

from second order differential equations

to climb in the water tank

in the middle of without letting anyone

know

i learned them all so

i had an awesome life in the campus

and then one fine day i learned

something else as well

i learned or rather i realized

that engineering is not the thing that i

wish to do all my life

i liked it but i couldn’t see myself

doing it all my life to the extent that

i would love each and every element of

it

even in its worst forms that wasn’t the

case

it was a time which actually made me

feel worried

my future which seemed bright and

certain suddenly started seeming

with a lot of uncertainties

i spoke to it and i told them that this

is how i feel about what i have been

doing

at that day my parents told me something

really important which had a lasting

impression on me

and i think that even

they said do not stop learning

beat your academics or be something else

that you like

just do not stop learning and things

will be fine

you’re at a good place you’re smart

something good will happen to you

this support from my family from my

folks

instilled insane amount of confidence

and i started the place of learning

once again this time it was little

different this time it was all about

unconstrained learning because i had not

to prove anything

there was nothing that i had in mind

that i would achieve it just whatever i

see inspired me

i would love one great person had once

said

that if you choose or if you choose

something

with only a same mind you will never end

up making

the right choices i think i took it away

too seriously

i started doing a lot of things

i started speaking to the mirror when i

was a little one

i would speak to myself and see how i

looked when i speak

how my face changed how my accent was

eric

one day i remember i spent hours trying

to perfect the pronunciation of the word

water in the most british possible

although i knew that i had it the next

morning i just did it because it made me

feel happy

in one instance i spent one whole night

reading through the reports of one of

the very famous

double murder cases which was all over

the news back in its time

why did i did that just like because it

made me feel happy

because i learned something i was proud

that i’m the person who knows about that

case

more than anybody else in this campus at

least

this went on for a long time but

academics were there as well so yes all

the stuff that i did

it did affect my grades a bit but not to

the extent that i couldn’t recover

it was all good since i had nothing to

worry about there was no tension in my

mind

i was just doing whatever my heart

but design always remained the way it

was

it was restricted to designing posters

and t-shirts for the college festivals

and so on i never considered it as a

career material

because it never felt desirable that

something you can

oh my god until now

when something happened in the industry

and it made me

look things in a different way

the startup industry started booming i’m

talking about 2014 2015.

and with that came the need of

that came the need of this new never

heard of

very cool and desirable profession

called ux design

i went ahead and started reading about

it i that most of the job descriptions

seemed like it’s a technical role it had

all the things an engine like me

would need to have to believe it at the

top it needed analytical thinking

it needed critical problem solving it

needed me to understand

code and so on and so forth

but along with that it had a few things

as well which is not

much heard in the technical industry

it asked for sympathy empathy

emotions aesthetics and design

that kind of opened my eyes and led me

into thinking

all those things which i have done in my

life which could also be regarded as

procrastination

is it actually required for some kind of

job which is actually going to pay me

money

seemed interesting i’ve read further

into it

and then i realized that’s exactly what

it is

as an engineer and as the things that i

have learned in my college

i already had the technical bits of the

things which was required for the job

or for that career and along with that

the greeting cards and the stuff that i

did in photoshop

also improved a few other aspects of it

and come on we are all humans we have

our emotions and sympathies

and i’m a very socially active person i

love to meet new people

so all these things together it seemed

like it would be a wonderful proposition

for someone like me

to be in the profession

and that’s exactly when i thought maybe

i should venture into the speed

and see what it has got in me

so that’s how i eventually started a

career

in design without having any formal

education

it is this compounding effect which

compounded the things which i

had inherently in me along with the

things which i acquired over a period of

time meet in my college or read in my

leisure

and it create a position which was so

unique that it

made me stack from the rest of the lot

i really understood the power of

bounding exactly

long later you know when i started

working

and things were in place i was quitting

jobs designing stuff

and life seemed good there was a time

when i started speaking

in public something like this

when i delivered my first talk in a

professional audience of course

that day i realized the value that i had

generated

by doing all the fun talk that i did at

random invader

i wasn’t as scared as someone else

speaking for the first time repeat

because i already walked past that

what started off like a fun activity

which i would do every night

my friends might even think that

probably he has lost his mind

that has actually created tremendous

amount of value for me the compounding

effect

worked once again and it compounded the

speaking skills which i accidentally

acquired

with the design skills which i had

anyways acquired by compounding my

engineering and my social skills

and created another new proposition of

ux speaking which itself is a career

these days by the way

so these days once in a while

when i look back and i pondered

how that likely switched

from the core engineering career to

related to design how would my life be

it feels like my life probably wouldn’t

be very different i would probably still

do really well

in that but maybe i wouldn’t be as happy

as i am today

when i present my work to my clients and

my stakeholders

i do it with the same amount of energy

and enthusiasm

the way i did when i was a kid i

presented those

masterpieces of those greetings to my

friends and relatives

it makes me so happy and for an

individual like me i’m very sure

a career which was only about

engineering could have

never given me that thanks