The Story of a Time-Traveler

As we all stared at the carvings on the walls of the ancient temple, trying to make sense of them, Kush effortlessly deciphered them for us, meticulously explaining what each panel depicted. He had an answer to every question any of us threw at him, whether it pertained to Rahul and Craig’s curiosity about Hindu mythology, Ritesh’s interest in architecture, or Khushboo and Ashley’s passion for understanding human behavior, culture and society. He was even able to provide snippets of information on how best to take pictures of the ancient ruins to ensure that Varun gets the best photographs. Kush Dhebar never failed to amaze us with his tremendous knowledge of just about everything on our short holiday to the historic town of Hampi, not to mention entertaining us with anecdotes of his previous excavations at different sites, much to the envy of outdoorsy Sagar!

3 things to know if you want to pursue a Career in Sports !

From injured physios and bitten defenders in the Football World Cup, to India winning 10 matches in a row in the Cricket World Cup, sports talk has been the pulse of conversations in social circles for the past year. In the wake of the nail biting and exciting year in the world of sports, I found myself in an interesting discussion with my friends about sports in the global context and the scope of being a sports person in India today. One of my friends in this discussion was Ryesh Venkatraman, a professional footballer and avid sportsman. He spoke of how athletics has been brought into the limelight in the past 5 years and how kids today have ample opportunities to pursue sports.

Thinking more on that conversation after I got home that day, I thought it would be a good idea to talk to Ryesh about his journey as a sport person and know more of his thoughts on the subject. Promptly, we met over coffee the next day and had a fun heart to heart on growing up, careers and sports! 

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 “When I was younger, my family and I lived in Bombay before eventually moving to Pune. As a kid, I spent my days at the Bombay Gymkhana, a club renowned for its social and sporting life. And I guess that’s what got me to fall in love with sports ! My family and I are sports fanatics and we love the outdoors. My younger sister Tishya and I grew up playing a variety of sports and our parents always encouraged us to have a life outside of the typical school-exam-classes routine”, he told me, talking about his initial interest in the outdoors.

How to start your own outdoors venture, and just about anything!

This is the story of a young software engineer-turned-outdoors entrepreneur named Ishan Sharma. This is the story of a small bunch of people who are determined to take people beyond their potential.

But this is also the story of every person who ever looked around their tube-lit classroom or hi-tech workplace, spied upon rows and rows of people staring into their computer screens, and then looked at the murky city sky outside and wondered...I wish I was out there!! 

It is the story of every executive who ever looked out of an airplane window at the rolling hills and green fields below, wistfully wished she could be down there, then picked up her bag and dutifully stood in line to deplane and go for that boring meeting.

It is the story of every person who ever stepped out of his multi-storeyed building into a traffic clogged street, covering his nose against noxious fumes, jumped into the nearest auto-rickshaw and asked to be driven to the market 2 kms away, grumbling about the 50 bucks he has to shell out for this short journey.

And if you have ever heard that voice in your head telling you to just do it, get out there, push your limits, then this is also your story. So read on...

5 Steps to the Right Career Choice for your Child

Medicine or modelling? Journalism or engineering? Sports or sciences? Teenagers today are faced with a multitude of choices when choosing a career. As parents and teachers, we are often faced with the difficult task to help them navigate and come up with the 'right' choice. But do we really know what's right for them? And if we know that a certain not-so-lucrative career is right for them in terms of leveraging their strengths and interests, should we advise them away from it towards more financially secure and stable choices?

5 reasons why you should work with passionate people

This January we complete a year of existence as The Potter's Earth, and a little more than that for me personally as a corporate-to-startup convertee. The start-up bug is the biggest flu-of-the-season for Indians these past few years, and all around in my circle of friends and acquaintances who have taken the ubiquitous 'plunge', one gets to hear stories of personal joys and travails, of start-ups, wind-downs and re-started-ups. I recently read a good piece on 5 reasons you will be grateful you choose to work for a startup, and it got me thinking how many of these reasons hold true for us at The Potter's Earth.

As we roll out of one hectic year into another even more hectic one, with my team of colleagues - family, friends, family-of-friends, and colleagues-now-turned-friends :-) - as fellow travelers, here's my own 5 reasons why 2014 was an awesome year and why I know 2015 is going to be an even better one.

My Adventures of flying solo

So there I was, 13-odd years into a corporate career, finally deciding to take the plunge into the vast and unpredictable world of entrepreneurship. True to my meticulous nature and my ever-present excel sheet, I had spent time examining my options, done my SWOT analysis, worked out the financials…basically I had done all possible left-brain thinking and created scenarios, sub-scenarios and counter-scenarios. And I sat back and wondered why this was the nth time I was doing this same exercise when I hadn't moved a muscle in the right direction in the past, and what was so different about this one time that I was willing to take the plunge now, when I did nothing about it all those other times. For all you employees-turned-entrepreneurs out there, what is that one moment - the trigger - that gave you the courage (or the foolhardiness?) to 'just do it'?

My Epiphany

Career choices as anyone will tell you are difficult ones to make. It is a common sight to see youngsters especially in high school sit and talk about what subjects to choose in 11^th, what specialization to study with in graduation, and which professional course to pursue. In my case it was a bit different – or at least it felt at that time like I’m the only one going through this dilemma – do I know better today? I hope to find out soon! But before that, here’s my story…