Embodying resilience—Life is Iffy

“I'm sure they will help you find a simple job and get by Capt. Rajat. It would be best not to aim too high in life from now on,” a well-meaning person said emphatically as I lay on the hospital bed with a missing right shoulder, arm, and patches all over my body. A few years later I was sitting in a room, pen in my left hand and head held high, looking at a white chart on the wall. There it was—my war plan to start by writing A, B, and C and make it to the best B-school in the country.

Fast forward a few years, I found myself at the portals of IIM Ahmedabad for the next two years, having chosen it after spending a few weeks at ISB Hyderabad. Another decade later, I reached another milestone by joining Deloitte as part a pilot team.


Sometimes, life throws a curveball

I was born into a military family and dreamt of joining the National Defense Academy after school. The first life-altering turmoil struck when I lost my father to blood cancer, which only strengthened my resolve. After years of training at NDA and IMA Dehradun, I got commissioned as an Army Officer and moved to the Northeast. After serving in the Northeast for some time, I was transferred to Baroda, Gujarat for a young officers’ course. During the course, one day I unexpectedly opened my eyes to the flutter of white lights in a hospital. Amidst the commotion, a doctor approached and said, “You were in a severe accident ten days ago. You lost a lot of blood, lost your pulse a few times, and to save your life, we had to amputate your right shoulder.”

I looked down at the sparkling clean white bandage around my missing shoulder area, then further down at my plastered right leg and bandaged stomach, realizing there were 15-20 missing teeth as well. However, I could see my family and other officers, hear their voices, and smell the flowers nearby. Everything else seemed just fine. I was thirsty and asked, “Can I have a chocolate milkshake?”

I didn’t realize it then, but that question probably brought a sigh of relief to everyone waiting to see my reaction. The question became the title of my book published in 2015. That reaction captures the essence of the mindset of never giving up—the power of resilience.

Unleashing the perseverance within

Given the severity of the injury, I realized I couldn’t continue in the Army. With advice from friends, family, and passers-by in the hospital (including demoralizing ones like the first one at the top), I decided to aim for what seemed unthinkable at that point. I started writing with my left hand, prepared for two MBA exams, CAT and GMAT, and targeted only two B-schools, IIM A and ISB. With hard work and perseverance, I sailed through both. Of course, the version of this story that I share in my talks has a lot more drama and punches.
 

I completed my MBA from IIM A in 2009 when the recession was at its peak and joined an IT & Consulting services organization. After seven years in that organization, as I looked at expanding my potential, I came across the opportunity I had always wanted. I was interviewed to join Deloitte as part of something new—a pilot team to support member firms in audit pursuits. With a focus on quality, innovation, and client-service excellence, the pilot succeeded as a team, and we have only grown in scope and volume.

Witnessing the growth of our organization over close to nine years, I can confidently say that the foundation of success lies in our strong values and culture. There have been tough times when our values guided us in taking the right path and delivering impact to our clients. And there have been tougher times as well, where resilience was brought to life. When an individual is resilient, and when the team is rooted in making an impact that matters, you become an indomitable force to forge ahead.

Resilience in everyday life

As we all know, resilience is a state of mind. Over the years, I have shared my learnings as part of talks at various companies, conferences, and within Deloitte. The simple truth? When things go wrong in life, acknowledge what has happened, accept the consequences of that event, take charge, decide what to do next, and take the first step. It’s all in the mind.

Going back 20 years, as I look at that body lying on the hospital bed, broken from head to toe with missing body parts, different outcomes could have taken shape. The mind could have thought, “You lost your right shoulder, your career is probably gone, everything is gone, life is over…”, and life indeed would have turned out quite differently. Instead, the mind said, “X, Y, and Z have happened. But everything else is fine, it could have been much worse. You could have been dead. You are alive. So, what’s next?” In our professional and personal lives, at times, things will go wrong. When it seems everything is over, what happens in the next chapter of our story depends entirely on how we choose to react. Nothing is over, nothing is done and dusted until we decide that it is. That is perseverance, and that is resilience.

The views expressed here are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of his current, former, or future employers or any organization with which he is associated.