The decade that tests you is usually the decade that changes you

Before anyone was paying attention, I had already had a long run of quiet victories. I had also had a few failures that still sting, which is the part that usually gets left out of accounts like this one.

I first performed on stage at eight. My first income was twenty rupees. Before I turned twenty I had worked across seven cities and was already managing people. That was not the result of family money. It came from learning things other people needed and being willing to go where the work was, which in those years meant training engineers for firms building out India's telecommunications and technology sectors.

The decade that changed the direction of my life was 2004 to 2014. In Australia I was carrying a combination that looked unmanageable written down: a full time job, a business of my own, study, and projects running across several time zones and industries.

Then came a call asking me to lead global social media campaigns.

The sensible part of me said no. It said I was already at capacity, that the timing was wrong, that there was no room. Something underneath it said I had been preparing for this without knowing it, and that the answer was yes.

I said yes. Then I did what saying yes actually requires, which is unglamorous. I worked while other people slept. I delivered things I had been told could not be delivered on that timeline. There is no technique in this that I can hand on. There is only the willingness to be the one still working after everyone else has stopped.

Recognition followed. I am wary of the version of this story that is only a list of prizes. The prizes were the smallest part of it and they are the part that ages worst.

What I would rather put on the record is this. I did it on my own terms. I did not sell anything I was not willing to sell. I did not step over lines I was not comfortable stepping over. Every yes was genuine and every boundary was deliberate.

The grit was mine. The support was not. My mother sat through the sleepless years with me. The mentors who mattered were the ones who saw not only what I produced but what I was worth.

None of it arrived by chance. When the opportunity knocked, I did not say I was too busy. I said, let us begin.

That is the whole method and it is not a comfortable one. You do what most people will not do, and not once, and not for a month. You do it repeatedly, with courage, with sacrifice, and with a consistency that nobody applauds.

If you are in one of those decades now, show up. Say yes to the thing you are almost too busy for. Write the story you will want to tell afterwards.