The pride of owning a Ted Baker bag is something that had an instant impact on my life. We all have used the products of Aditya Birla Group conglomerate all our lives. But just knowing that Ted Baker, one of the finest luxury brand is a part of Aditya Birla Group made me a proud Indian!
So, the story behind owning a bag from one of the premium luxury brands started in the second year of Engineering when a classmate had got a Ted Baker signature bag for her birthday. Not owning that kind of money, I had a mini goal in our mind to somehow make my first luxury purchase from Ted Baker only. The spark to get this bag actually ignited a series of events. Having said that, I started looking for ways to earn money while at college. The luck was in my favour because TVS motors came to our campus for summer internship recruitment. The only motivation to sit through their 9 rounds of regress interviews was the stipend that came with the internship And that rigour was something that got me one of the best internships that were offered in the campus that year.
This incident taught me one of the biggest lessons of my life, i.e. to find the fuel for every goal to keep the ignition on and then problems will start looking like opportunities and words will start turning into actions.
As a teenager, I had a few acne breakouts on my face. I remember the summer of 2014 when I was at home and the breakouts started spreading rapidly covering my entire face within 2 days just before my fifth semester was going to start.
My biggest challenge was not the breakouts, which eventually needed medical restoration, but was my reception towards my friends and student’s stares, comments and laughter. My everyday struggle to wake up with that face and go to college was a battle I never prepared myself for. No medicine or remedy seemed to have even a minor positive effect. The fear of judgment and self-mortification crushed my confidence. Initially, I stopped looking at the mirror and eventually stopped attending a social gathering.
Repressing myself, I killed my morale with my own hands. A month of stifling myself passed when I realised that I was ashamed to look at my own face in the mirror. The dawn of this realisation made me detest myself, for the first time, not because of acne but my attitude towards myself, because I gave power to that acne and others to pull me down.
I gathered my lost confidence and started working on my resume and extra circulars. This is the same year when I was promoted to the head of sponsorship, was selected for a core team member in college’s annual fest and got an internship with TVS Motors.
In the entire journey, I have learnt that sometimes, somethings will not be under my control, so instead of letting such things govern my life, I should rather channelize my energy to achieve my goals without breaking my confidence. Another lesson I learnt is that something will be weakness only if you make it one and people’s perceptions of you are not going to be significant once you know what your ambitions in life are. This has helped me know myself better and make an impact on others who has or are having such issues. My small story if can give strength to one other person, I think my job would be done there!