I was a naive person.
My parents always made decisions for me. I come from a very poor family in India, so they thought I should put all my focus on my studies to get out of poverty. I never traveled outside my city, so I lacked real life experiences. I couldn’t hang out with friends as I didn’t have the money for restaurants. We didn’t have TV, fridge, phone, internet, computers, and even a bank account. When I went to college suddenly everyone expected me to grow up, and I failed to meet their expectations.
I learned to become a people pleaser, and always took care of others before myself. I trusted everyone and they took advantage of me. My family and friends ridiculed me for being immature. But no one tried to understand my situation. Due to constant failures and a lack of respect from others, I lost all confidence in myself. Being naive became part of my identity, and I felt worthless. This situation went on until 2019.
In 2020, I got three salary increments in the space of 6 months at my software developer job, which gave me huge self-esteem boost. I wanted to learn everything fast and get more promotions, so I started to spent all my money on books and courses. I studied every day and never took any breaks. I thought earning more money would get me respect from others, but couldn’t catch up with my peers. There were just too many books to read and courses to complete.
In 2022, I realized the main issue. I learned some disjointed theories from those courses but didn’t connect them. Eventually I found out the common pattern across all domains - Humans. By understaning how human mind works, now I can reverse engineer any theory or product and connect with other domains.
From relying on others for even basic decisions, I suddenly found myself critiquing my former idols, like Naval and Tony Robbins, and crafting original arguments on everything. Now, I’m writing about how I do it.
My dream is to join any conversation and have ability to speak authoritatively. Either as a speaker when I am an expert, or as a listener by asking fundamental questions to unlock others. And in the age of AI, I believe our own thinking is the only advantage we have.
Here in this blog I write an article everyday. I am working on a book to organize everythng and a journaling app based on the same for aspiring thought leaders. Subscribe to get updates on them.
Also, connect with me on X / Twitter for short-form posts: https://x.com/admiralrohan
