The Journey!

 

Dreams! 

Although they seem impossible at times, dreams have a strong

role in defining what a person becomes.If we look back into

our past, whatever we are today, started from a dream. 

It might be something small, but it has evolved over time.

New dreams keep popping up every now and then, and 

I believe, that at least some of them play a crucial role in

defining who we.

Back in 2012, was when I completed my 12th Grade,

I was confused as I had a lot of options in front of me.

I was worried, because I knew I was making an important

decision on how my future would look like.Being inspired 

by movies, I was very much tempted to choose the stream

of Electronics and Communication. All I wanted to do was to

build the stuff as I saw in movies. I was extremely excited, 

like most of us, when I joined an Engineering college

    

 Later, I realized whatever was taught in college, was just an

advanced version of high schools. Of Course, I learned a lot

of basics, but the extensive theory was kind of pulling me back. 

I slowly realized that what I was expecting is not what I will be

getting from the academics. It was a pull back for a few days, 

and then I thought of finding options of utilizing whatever was

available to get closer to the dream I saw.

 

I was so motivated by the idea of robots, because i felt that in

some way, humans were trying to recreate humans, but in an

synthetic way. I still remember the first few months of college,

 where I was eager to read books from the Library about 

Robotics.This was happening in parallel, and soon I realized 

that I have a lot to learn if I need to get where I want.

 It is equally important to have an atmosphere around us 

which is constructive, positive and productive. And I didn't 

want to miss any of the fun from college life. It was extremely

 important to find a striking balance, so that i can manage both. 

 

 The first good thing that happened to me, were the group of

 friends I found. The group started getting bigger and fun. We

 were always in the last few benches. I started enjoying the fun

 part of college life. The best part of the entire group was that 

they knew all of my crazy dreams, but whenever it comes to 

getting something done, they have always been with me.

I started attending doing a Post-Graduate Diploma in 

Embedded system design during the weekends, because I

 felt that would be the first step in getting started. I started 

learning online, bought stuff and started building tiny robotic

 devices. I was so excited to see how i could get stuff done 

with some electronics and a few lines of code.These used to

 keep me awake at night, most of the time, where i will be

 building stuff and learning new things. And the motivation

 I got was how my friends used to support me after I 

built something new. 

 

I still remember that we used to spend late nights watching

 movies and by the time the movie would be over, we would

 all be lazy to get up to switch off the lights. And that was 

when i built something, where we would switch off the lights 

and fan in our room with a remote. We installed it together in

our room in the hostel and had so much fun playing with it.

 The excitement on their face, when i build something new 

was the fuel for my dreams. With all these happening, i 

started learning more, and i was getting excited as i felt that 

i was slowly getting towards my dream.

 

 

 It was during that time that I started hearing a lot about 

Startups. The idea of having my own company sounded

 so cool. I really wanted to club it with what I was doing as 

a hobby, but I never knew where to start from. As a first

 step towards that dream, I realized something one night.

 It took me a couple of months to learn about electronics, 

Arduino, the hardware and stuff like that. And it took me 

a lot of troubleshooting and effort to get these stuff up and

 running. 

I thought, "Why not teach this to students?"

 The idea was very well supported by my Seniors who were 

handling an Organization called 'CEST' in our college, 

SCT College of Engineering. They gave me a platform to 

organize a training in college for my juniors, through the

 platform of CEST.

 

It was the first time that I was training students. A large 

number of students signed up for the session. I still 

remember the day of the training. I entered the hall and 

I got the shock of my life, when I saw over 80 students, 

who were waiting there to learn. I was procrastinating

 too much and the program was delayed by almost half 

an hour, because i was worried about how to start. I soon

 realized that it was something big which i have put myself 

into and there was no turning back. With my friends all around

 me, trying to calm me down, i took a deep breath

 and started speaking. My voice was shivering as i started,

 but within a few minutes, i got myself in the track. I started 

enjoying it. All my friends were volunteering for the session,

 which made it much more easy and comfortable.The

 positive feedback from the students gave me much more

 confidence for the upcoming day, as it was a two day session. 

 

Next day, when i reached the college in the morning, I was

 surprised to see the students playing with their robots, much

 before the scheduled time. Since then, I had conducted 

multiple training sessions, in different states .None of them 

would have been possible if i never made the first step on 

that day, and if the College and Seniors had not supported the 

dream. This was the point when I realized that making the first

 step and getting out of the comfort zone is the first thing you

 have to do in getting closer to your dream.

    

This was the time when many people knew about what I did.

 But I was still not sure how to move to the next step. I found 

myself stuck with my ideas. It was when the 2005 Alumni 

batch came to our College, with a wonderful initiative of 

giving exposure to students in the field of startups. 

I remember the HOD coming to our class along with 

Sandeep Zachariah, and they explained about their initiative. 

It was when i lifted my heads up from my book

 ( Where i was playing Bingo :P ). 

It sounded so exciting and i really wanted to get in somehow.

 I was excited when the HOD of our Department, 

Sheeja MK, pointed me out from the last bench and said that

 i have been doing similar stuff in College. This was a turning

 point where I got closer to my dreams. I was connected to the

 2005 Alumni batch and with a community called "Rethink"

 which was an initiative by Sijo Kuruvila, who is the founding 

CEO of Startup Village, which was my dream place to be in. 

The 2005 Alumni Batch, sponsored me for the first ever 

exposure which I had, to the community of Startups and 

Makers. It was an event in Ahmadabad, called the

 Maker Fest. After we got connected, we had a

 conference call later that day and the next day, I was

 made ready to fly to Ahmadabad for the Maker Fest. It

 was an event where makers, startups 

from all over the country would gather.This was the best

 exposure so far. I got connected with a lot of makers like 

Arvind Sanjeev, Jibin Jose, Rohil Dev, Nidhya, Juhaim who

 were all experts and experienced in the domain already. 

The fun part was how easily every one synced up in a 

very short time. 

 

Getting connected with the team and spending time with 

them, was something which helped me a lot moving forward.

 This was a point, where I realized how important network and

 getting connected with Like Minded people was. The lesson

 has helped me with multiple aspects of my life, both personal

 and professional. And the biggest turning point happened,

 and i got an idea how to take my Startup forward, with the 

support from the Rethink community and the Alumni of SCT.

  Within a few months, the next event came up which was the

 Arduino day in Banglore. This was again identified and supported

 by the 2005 Alumni team. This time, we were much more prepared.

 Four of us from SCT traveled for the event. Angelin Mary John, 

Shameer A, Sujith S. This time we were much prepared. We were 

not there just to see and network, but we had something to present.

 It was a Brain Controlled Robot. I had this idea of building a brain 

controlled Robot since long, but the Mindwave sensor kit was 

expensive for me to afford at that point. This was again when 

Sandeep Zachariah, connected me with people in Rethink 

community and from the ALumni who gave me a Mindware Brain

 Sensor Kit, to prepare for the presentation. This was also when

 i got connected with the Team of Fin Robotics, which was the

 brain child of Rohil Dev ( Currently Tech CEO of Nimo Planet).

 Interaction with their team was yet another turning point which 

gave me much more exposure to a startup environment. Back at 

the Arduino day, we had a stall for our idea, where we presented 

our Brain controlled Robot. We also had a networking session 

organized by Sandeep Zachariah in banglore where we met

 more people from Rethink team, giving us a better exposure. 

This was also a part of the initiatives of the Alumni and Rethink 

community which gave us students an amazing exposure, about

 what is really happening outside.

 Later, with the support of the Alumni, Rethink community, 

CEST, friends, i decided to go ahead with my dream of my 

startup where we started small by designing, developing and

 manufacturing Home Automation Products. We named it 

Synapse, and we started manufacturing products. We slowly

 spread our wings and moved into other domains like Chemical 

Industry, where we started manufacturing Gas Leak detectors.

 Most of our Gas Leak Detectors had customers from other 

countries, and later we also expanded into the area of Research

 and Development. Our team started developing custom products

 for clients, based on use cases.

 At a point, we decided to take a break to understand the market 

from a different perspective. This was a big change. Shifting from

 a startup environment to a Corporate world, was something very 

new to me.Finding a new job seemed challenging to me.It was again

 through the connects of Alumni, that sorted these out as well.

 I was given opportunities for finding job opportunities through the

 connects in the Alumni Community, and later when i found a job, 

it was again Suraj from the Alumni Community who helped me

 with the transition. It was at this point that i realized the strength

 of communities and how they can help you in each and every 

stage of your dreams. Since then i moved into a Industrial domain.

 Currently I work on Industry 4.0 and Digitalization for manufacturing 

Industries, with Focus on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

.I recently completed my Post Graduation on Machine Learning and 

Artificial Intelligence and i still work on activities which are a part 

of the dreams which pop

 

Still learning, still dreaming, Still evolving !

 

I have been mentioning "Friends" a couple of times. I believe this 

Blog Post would never be completewithout mentioning them. 

All these would have never been possible if i was associated with

 a different friend circle. All Thanks to Sarath Mohan, Vishnu SR, 

Vishnu Sreeprakash, Viju Sudhi, Nidheesh K, Thoyyib Tk, Sreejin S,

 Basil Mohammed, Navas , Vivek and the Hostel which was our 

playground. :P

 

Something i learned from the whole experience mentioned above is,

 

• It is really important to have dreams. May it be big or Small. 
• It is really important to be with the right community who can help you in moving forward. 
•  Anyone can get stuck. And we area always afraid of asking for help. 
• Support from the right people can help in achieving dreams in ways which you can never imagine.
•  Sometimes, these connects happen with time. If it doesn't we should try to find them ourselves. 
•  It is equally important to have a work life balance. 
• You should never have a situation where you think, too much work has made me miss 
• all the good parts of life. OR, too much fun has made negligent about achieving the dreams.

At the end of the day, It is all about Dreams, Networking and finding the Right Balance.

Perception

 Let me start with a question!

What is your perception of life? The perception of life keeps changing. Atleast for me, it had changed quite a few times. The different experiences in life along with time, had given rise to new perceptions, I believe. And each time it happened, it had opened windows of new experiences and opportunities which changed the way i look at my life.

I was talking to a colleague of mine a day back, about his 3 year old son. About those kids who are full of energy. From the moment they wake up to the moment they sleep, they are full of extreme enthusiasm and energy. Maybe because all they want to do is, be happy, doing whatever they feel like and nothing else really bothers them. During my Childhood, I still remember spending hours and days trying to learn to spin an old wooden top, which comes with a rope. I had to wind it around the top and throw it, pulling the rope back somehow so that it would start spinning on the floor. I remember when i was at my hometown, cursing the top because it would never spin even after i tried it a hundred times. At the end when i learned to do it, i felt like i had conquered something huge. If i was given the same top now, i would never have had the patience to spend so much time to learn that. My Colleague was telling that even if he scolds his kid, he would wake up the next day with a fresh mind and same enthusiasm, as if nothing had happened because they don't really care. Its envious to see kids being so carefree and happy and thinking of those moments usually makes us miss those childhood days, and we feel like we want to be that kid again.

The joy starts fading when you let your senses and feelings take over you. I have always noticed the kids who start going to school, who always have the enthusiasm to learn, because all they have to do is learn new things and they have absolutely no pressure. The whole concept of learning becomes a nightmare when the exams kicks in. It is not about learning new stuffs anymore. It is all about scoring 100 on 100 and if you don't, then you will be compared with that topper, which I d to hate like anything. It is when the we start to see the different side of life. With these kind of incidents my happy childhood started fading away. I still remember when we had a sports in my Kindergarten, years back, there was a competition of throwball, in which i participated with a lot of enthusiasm and effort. I had to throw a volleyball as far as i can to win the game and I was not able to win. I was depressed when all the friends in my van came in the evening with prizes like plastic bats, and footballs and i had none. That was the first incident that i remember,  where feelings started taking over my happiness in life. Life started giving me more hardships in different forms one by one after that. It came in the form of Attention,Grades,"What people might think" and so on.I was made to believe the system, that if i don't do certain things which the majority does, I may fail in life. Most of us might have had similar experiences. It is all about how the society makes us trained to live under the mis-concept of pressure and attention.

I was watching a movie a few days back. "Insurgent"

The concept of the movie was just brilliant.A city had 5 groups of people who were supposed to do only what they are good at. Each groups were specialists, who did different roles like farming, Science and Research, Maintaining law and order, The ones who runs the government, and the Soldiers who protect the city.

Everyone had a day when they are forced to go into either of the groups.If someone had interests or skills in more than one field, then he was considered to be a divergent and as a threat to society. 

The second part of the movie " Divergent" comes with a twist to the plot when everyone in the city realises that divergents are the ones who will change the face of the city in future.

The concept was interesting for me as this was something which was happening around me quite often.

During my high school I had a group of friends who had ideas to start their own music band because they were extremely good at it, and they knew it. They were not so good with academics and they were set as  examples. But later by breaking all the misconceptions and struggling through their dreams they came up with the Band of their dreams and then people started accepting their efforts.

When i wanted to start a company during my graduation, I asked a few of my seniors who already did that and all i got from them was a lot of discouragement. After being discouraged from my dream for a couple of days, i decided to start over again. I had to struggle  to set the company up. I was more focussed on company than studies and hence I started facing a lot of criticisms. Only because i decided to face them, I had my own company registered since my second year of graduation and who ever I am today, is only because i took the first step, back then.

I had a friend who had almost dropped out of college to follow his passion, interests and startups and I still remember the hard times the college used to take him through for not being able to attend classes as he had to focus more in his interests. He heads a company now and has employed many of his friends as well.

So the whole concept of the story being how the society tries to pull us down when we try to do things we love. Because it is only when we do things we love, we start enjoying life and we become successful. 

Some of us might be already doing what we want to do, whereas some of us will be struggling to reach there. But which ever the case is, it is never too late to achieve your dreams or to find your passion.

I will be adding a blog on that here, soon

So whichever phase of life we are in, it is extremely important to be happy and not to give a fuck when life tries to fuck us. I started to think different when i met certain mentors in my life accidentally, But they have given me new concepts and perceptions of life. One of those perceptions which i follow now is by recreating the same life as my childhood. 

From what i have experienced, there are a few things that helped me in this.

1. Not Expecting

         It took me over 18 years to realize that expectations are all what causes this ups and downs in life. I have been trying hard not to expect anything since the past few weeks and believe me, it had a huge impact on my life. Now when certain good things happen in life, it gives me immense joy.At the same time if nothing happens, Im still happy because i wasn't expecting anything.

2. Enjoying what you do

        Not expecting doesn't mean that you should just let go of your life. You should always do what is needed. To make that clear, if you want to achieve something, put in your best effort and enjoy the work you do. Focus on what you want to do, and work as if there is no pressure on you and the results will follow.

There is something related to the how we can shape our future in the way we want it, just by the power of our subconcious.I will be adding that blog over here soon.

3. Dealing with the Energy Vampires

              There are three types of people.
1. The ones that give you positive energy and motivation to hit the life back with all you got.
2.People that neither give you energy nor takes yours
3.People that drains out all your positive energy or motivation.

You get limited energy everyday and it is similar to a cell phone. You energy graph gets to the peak when you sleep by gaining more and more energy and you are left it for the rest of the day. I charge my phone twice a day. But it is not possible to sleep twice a day to just fill up the energy. So you have to bring in your power saving mode just like your phone, for your life as well.
You can decide where to invest your energy. Whether to invest in people who give you back good thoughts or more energy in return or with energy vampires. Energy vampires are people who drain out all your energy and leave your rest of the day as a mess. The best way to deal with energy vampires is to spend less time with them. The more you extend a conversation with an energy vampire, the more exhausted you end up being. Keep the conversations short and end the phrased with a fullstop rather than a question mark.
When he/she asks you 
Hey, How are you?
End it with
Im doing great. Thanks :D
Rather than
Im good. And how are you? (Because do you really care of he is doing good or bad? :P)
Because the question marks takes you to more troubles than full stops .

The concept is as simple as that, and now it is we who have to decide how to plan out the day.

4.Stop stalking on your competitors

        It can always be a tendency to check if your competitor is a step ahead of you or not. But the question is why should you care?
If he/she is ahead, you get tensed trying to speed up your pace, which most of the times takes you into a mess.
If he/she is behind you relax and slow down and eventually you end up being behind.
Best thing is to avoid this and focus on your part. You may cross him at any point of time.  Because become more focused on the person ahead ,you are more prone to cover up what you are good at with envy and depressions.

There may be even more things which can help you to be happier or pleasant through out the day, but these 4 points will definitely bring about a change.


If it helps and if you are trying it out, do let me know how it goes in the comments below.
Looking forward to see more happy faces!

Chennai

 

It has been almost two years since i started this Blog. Every time i log in, i would have a different idea of how this blog should look like. And i have made over 7 Draft Posts which were never published. :P

At first, i wanted to write all motivational stuffs and then when i read what i wrote,  it was horrible. :P Then me and my friend( Yasir ) who recently moved together with me to Chennai , started to brainstorm on how to do something apart from our Jobs to keep us active. And after a few hours we came up with something. A food and Travel Blog.

Why? Because we believed Chennai was under-rated.
What was your perception about Chennai before you visited the place for the first time? Or What comes into your mind?



Of course this would pop up somewhere!

This was what used to come into my mind first.
And then would be flood, Cyclones, not-so-good food, the scorching heat and much more.
None of them were soothing.

After the first few days of the Chennai exploration, we found that it was quite different.

We found Surfing Clubs, Clean Private Beaches to Chill out, Food Streets, Pubs , Themed Restaurants and much more.

So the blog was supposed to contain a lot of such hangout places, reviews, places to visit.
It has been almost a year since the conversation happened and still we talk about doing it :P


Meanwhile a lot of Chennai exploration took place and i will be putting that up in the upcoming posts.

And then happened a weekend, when i decided to get a bike for myself. Obviously i started thinking of making a travel blog out of this space.

Experience sharing posts were almost 2/7. The 7 drafts which i was mentioning when i started. And i never finished one.

I never finished anything i started here. And as time flies, when i sit back on my couch sipping my cup of Coffee with my laptop in front of me, like most of us, i also started thinking why i never completed anything.

It has been almost 6 months now, since i started to think the same. And On this Fathers Day,  i thought i would make a first step towards my Blog which has been in my bucket list for a long time now.

My Blog would be a mix of the ideas mentioned above.
Something about Chennai, Some travel diaries, Food blogs, and some random crazy shit :P

The above commitment was to keep myself motivated to write more here, so that i will be able to keep this blog alive.

Cheers!

Not anymore!

When sometimes you feel all alone, when you feel like letting yourself go in the flow, when nothing or nobody around you matters, and when you will be wondering what went wrong, listen to your mind. Listen to what your life has to say.

Because each time your life gives you troubles, he aint trying to stop you from your dreams. Life aint discouraging you. Life aint making you feel useless..
Instead,
Life is just trying to level you up.
Life is trying to pull you more out of your comfort zone.
Life is trying to make you resistible to the toughest.
Life is getting you closer and closer to your dreams.
It might make you wonder, why cant something happen straight away?

"Why cant I just get to my dreams? I have already worked far enough!"
or maybe

"Why cannot I just start a business and start earning money easily!"

NO!

Because it is not how, life is supposed to work.

If your dreams are not coming true,
If they fail at some point or the other,
Then it is not because the someone up there is longing to see you fail.
It is because you haven't given the kind of hard work that is necessary to make it happen.
Sometimes it would need more work than you ever thought it would.
If you keep challenging your life, each time it works against you, you find yourself growing stronger.
You find yourself a step ahead of your dream, each time you fail ,
until you fail,
and fail,
maybe a hundred times,
until you taste success.
It may take you years to achieve what you thought might take a day.
The longer it takes towards your goal, the better would be the results.
Life always has an attitude of bossing around.
Don’t let your life be your boss. Because the moment you let things go as how it needs to be,
the moment you let the little failures take control over you,
life would find you unfit for your dream.
Untill you end up in the group of "Most People".

The saddest thing about "Most People" being, they don’t regret doing what they did in their life. Instead they regret things they couldn’t do, when life starts winding up.

And the reason why people end up in the "Most" pack is not because they don’t have the potential. It is because of the fear of failure.

Afraid to fail, if the idea they have doesn’t work right.
Afraid to fail, if the business may fail.
Afraid to go wrong, if they may shout out the wrong answer.
Afraid to do things , that has never happened!

Do you want your predictions of how things may go wrong,to make you a mediocre?

Destroy your fear of failure because there is never something as failure.

It is either "Success" or "A Lesson"
Most people mistake "The lesson" to be failure.
Why should you do the same when you can,
Find your dream,
Start to fail,
Keep failing,
Untill you find success,
Because success can never make you better, Only failures do!