Fire is the test of gold; adversity of men. School life has been a very protective environment for me. Never facing adversities. The academic life had been extremely fulfilling for many years. Earning accolades, being at leadership positions in school was natural. Then school ended and I decided to take up the prestigious Chartered Accountancy as a career option. The initial two levels of the course passed on extremely smooth. However, then failure hit and it hit hard. The final examination of CA became a tough nut to crack. After multiple attempts, I managed to clear 1 group of papers but success in the 2nd group still eluded me. Meanwhile I took up a job in a local CA firm and started teaching a small group of Higher Secondary students on the side. Now, when after many attempts I still couldn’t clear the 2ndgroup of papers, my dream of entering the industry in a Finance role seemed far-fetched.
This is where I decided to give CA a break and look for other avenues to achieve my ambition and zeroed down to a PGDM in Finance. Now, one may think that this is a story of failure and not creating an impact. But, let me remind you that a true leader is someone who doesn’t lose her ability to think clearly in the face of adversity. This was my chance to turn around in life and emerge as a phoenix, leave the failures behind and focus my attention on what that mattered, the end goal, a career in finance.
This isn’t a story of running away in the face of difficulties, but rather knowing when its time to stop loss.