Are you one of those people who tell themselves, “I’m happy with what life has offered me until now, I like this place I’m in and so let me set myself on cruise mode and float along!” Well, to be honest, this was me until 2017! That’s where my story starts, a Civil Engineer with a year’s experience in the field and a promising future in it as well. But the truth was that I wasn’t happy deep within. I always knew I wanted something more with life but the middle-class motto “Family always comes first” restricted me from doing anything that had a chance of failure.
I still remember so vividly, 29th of May 2017, another Monday evening in Chennai, I’d finished my day’s work, and as I walked to my bike, I was suddenly bombarded with a cluster of thoughts that I’d long kept buried inside me. For no apparent reason, I broke down in tears as I heard this voice that said, “If not now, NEVER!”. That very second is when my life started transforming once and for all. I resigned from my job by July and went into introspection mode to understand myself and discover what really made me happy. Being a self-taught baker, I finally landed upon “desserts” after about a month. I started baking when I was ten and always loved the emotion that desserts invoked in a person. I soon found myself at the doorstep of Nicky’s Café and Fine Pastries. Seeing my willingness and enthusiasm to take up any job that they were open to offering a complete newcomer to the commercial food establishment industry, I settled for the position of a barista, hoping to end up in the kitchen where I belong. The funny thing about doing what you love is that there are little exhaustion and a whole lot of exploration into paths previously undreamt.
In less than a month, I found myself being completely in charge of the Café, and this reawakened my storytelling tendencies, making me start looking at business as a living entity whose story was waiting to be related to the world. I soon started exploring different avenues of conveying the story of Nicky’s Cafe and found myself conducting photo shoots, directing video adverts, and organizing campaigns.
Unbeknownst to me, this was taking me into a whole new world called marketing. From here on, all my experimentation started paying off and led to record-breaking sales and footfall for the Café. This was when I realized it was time for my next big step. Having lost touch with the academic world for over three years, I was apprehensive about entering the world of Business Education. Nevertheless, I juggled between work and studies for about five months and finally managed to scrape through with an above-average percentile. It would, however, be wishful thinking to enter an IIM with such a score, but this is where IIM Nagpur stands out. To my good fortune, IIMN is an institution that firmly believes in the value added to a person through industry experience.
Fast forward to August, and here I am now juggling between academics, orientations, cultural events, and whatnot. You might think that a virtual mode of education might hamper such an institution from giving its students the best, but I beg to differ. IIMN has remarkably exceeded my expectations and has left me with a feeling of awe and gratitude. The one take away from my experience is to listen to that voice inside; experiment, improvise, and keep searching for what makes you happy.
About the Author
Savio Joseph is a PGP first-year student at IIM, Nagpur. He is a self-taught baker, cinematographer, editor, guitarist, and singer-songwriter. He is into all those things that seek creativity and love being involved in any form of creative arts. He occasionally writes short stories & humour is one of his most favourite genres.