A Few Lessons and Regrets

The last couple of weeks I’ve been pretty introspective.?

Somehow, in the midst of what I would classify as the most hectic and chaotic period of my life, I’ve spent more time than ever in deep reflection.?

Perhaps it’s needed to keep moving forward and push yourself to address the next challenge.?

Somewhere in those thoughts, these lessons and regrets specifically stuck out to me.?

Some are focused on actions I wish I had started to do earlier.?

Some are on patterns forming that are already becoming an overarching theme in my life.?

Either way, I think recognizing them can be highly influential in ensuring I make good decisions going forward.?

1. I have never had any real mentors

I’ve never had any real mentors in my life.?

Anything I have learned has been purely through observation and trial and error. What that means is that I have made a lot of dumb, avoidable mistakes over and over again until it finally clicks that it will not work.?

It means that any path I choose is a path I must forge alone.?

Without the aid of experience or guidance, I have to consistently rely on endurance and breaking down hurdles to move to the next step.?

This can be extremely exhausting. You continually have to rely solely on self-belief and faith to keep pushing forward, even when you have no idea if it’s correct. It’s part of the reason why I try to give back as a mentor or as a sounding board whenever I can.

To help others avoid hitting these walls that I seemingly have to keep going through.

2. Not having convictions in my ideas earlier

For a long time, I fed myself this lie that I could only do things once I reached a certain age. Or that the ideas I had were ill-formed as a factor of my age. It’s only now I can say that those were legitimately great ideas and were ahead of their time.?

Albeit, the devil is never in the idea but always in the execution.?

But I should’ve had the conviction to try.?

Looping back to my first regret, I think it came down to this apprehensiveness of doing things alone. Without any validation, guiding force, or anyone else who would want to embark on the journey, I seemed to always hesitate to get started, knowing that I would have to do it alone.

?It took time to realize that feeling would never shake.?

I just wish it had happened earlier.

3. Shying away from interactions

Everyone and everything is a handshake away. The founder whose work you really look up to. The recruiter hiring for the role that you know you will kill. The person you would love to have a conversation with at a house party. Shake their hand and start a conversation.?

We create these ideas about how these interactions will go in our heads. We have these hypothetical conversations with someone we have never even interacted with. We create this perception of how it will go and we tend to decide based on that whether or not to engage in conversation. But in practice, you have no idea what will happen.?

You don’t know where a conversation will take you.?

You don’t know where it might lead.?

So play it out.?

Get it out of your head.?

Just talk to them.?

Sure, it might end up exactly how you thought, for better or for worse. But maybe it doesn’t. The best things that have happened in my life have been from the most unexpected conversations.

?But it all starts by saying “hello”. I just wish I had started doing it earlier.

4. My discomfort with being alone has made me compromise

Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am a pretty extroverted person. I thrive on forming bonds, meeting people, and getting to know more about them.?

However, being wired like this has come at a cost. It has ended up with me scrapping good ideas I wanted to pursue because no one else wants to do it or has belief in it. Or settling for whatever I can get easily rather than striving to get the best to push myself.?

There is a luxury of waiting for the right time or opportunity that you gain from being a sole proprietor. Finding a balance is key and something I keep working.?

At every step of the way, I took actions and made decisions that I felt were right at the time.?

Hindsight is always 20/20.?

So while it can be easy to think extensively about how life might have been different, there is nothing we can do to change it.?

All we can do is learn, adapt, and keep moving forward.

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Check out this Podcast Episode!

You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Podcasts

In this episode of Building Blocks, we explore the cutting-edge world of AI-powered software integration with Isabella Reed, co-founder of CamelAI, a Y Combinator-backed platform that allows users to chat with their entire software stack.?

Isabella shares her journey from working in senior sales and growth roles to co-founding a startup that’s revolutionizing how we interact with our digital tools. She discusses the challenges of pivoting from QA testing to a comprehensive AI chat interface, and how CamelAI is making complex software interactions more intuitive and accessible.

Thanks for reading,

Daivik Goel