Yearly Series: Memories and Learnings from 2021!

Year 2021 was a roller coaster ride for the entire world, and it wasn’t any different for me. The year made me realize that there is no dearth of opportunity provided we learn and enjoy learning. The happiest part is to retrospect and see how the seed bowed in the previous few years starts flowering and we start reaping the rewards. And while we cherish the reward, we ought to be cognizant of putting effort now to give our future self an opportunity to thank us back.?

I feel humble and full of gratitude for the accomplishments of 2021. The consistency of action, over the last few years, has helped me create memories to cherish forever:

• Ph.D. admission call?– Definitely one of the most celebrated news for me was to get the offer letter from IIM Bangalore & Lucknow. Irrespective of my decision to postpone the Ph.D. dream, this endeavor has instilled the feeling that anything is achievable provided we continue to work towards it. The hours spent researching, the effort to convert the learnings into published papers, the weeks spent in curating Statement of Purpose (SOP), and the gratitude of receiving Letter of Recommendations (LoRs) from my MBA professors was a fulfilling journey.?As I move forward, the selection call and the confidence gained through it will further firm my intention towards conducting novel research and being the researcher of original thoughts for creating impact!

• Podium Finish and the Love for Running?– In the process of training myself for a marathon, hardly had I ever thought of being a podium finisher. But again, consistency has its own way to favor the unthinkable. “Congratulations for making it to podium finish” were the exact words that I heard from one of the organizers of Kalinga Runners Club Run while she was noting down my bib number. The taste of securing the podium position in a 10K with my personal best (PB) is surreal.?Looking at the whole year, the experience gained while running KR Club Run, HDOR (100 days of Running) and Tata Ultra 35K helped tremendously to pull off my biggest run in the form of “Goa SKF River Side Half Marathon”.

Not to forget about making it to the “World Book of Records London” for running in the mass event along with 11,610 co-runners with National Flag on 15th?Aug 2021.

• Exploration of the leadership trait through Toastmasters International– I started the year with the aim to cement myself in Toastmasters International. The journey started with becoming a member of Toastmaster Community Club Bhubaneswar. After this first step, there was no looking back. The transition from member to getting elected as the "Vice President Education" of the club was an excellent opportunity to amplify my leadership style. I enjoyed serving the community and celebrated every win of our club including leading the team on various occasions. The club outing in contests was nothing short of exceptional. We secured TWO wins at area-level contests and ONE runner-up position at the division level. I enjoyed representing our club along with my mentor, TM Sudeepto, in both Table Topics and Speech Evaluation contests. After all, what’s more wonderful than bringing gold to home and home here is “Toastmaster Community Club Bhubaneswar”.?

Now coming to the key learnings which often stays behind the scenes:?

• Overcoming setbacks: Getting a Ph.D. admission letter (or even the interview call) requires – (a). solid research accreditation, (b). strong Letter of Recommendations and (c). awareness about one’s strength in the subject of choice. The failed attempt of the Yr. 2020 outing helped me tremendously gain the lost ground. This time I was a bit wiser when I went ahead with my strength of “Technology Strategy” rather than feeling tempted towards other research areas just because I find it super cool to read. Also, the continued effort to work towards strengthening research accreditation throughout 2020 and 2021 helped tremendously.

The setback of 2020 helped make me wiser in the year 2021.?

• Runners’ nightmare – ‘Injury’: After all, only when we get injured, we realize that running is a luxury! While there is no magic wand to eradicate this, I believe, sticking to the basics of warmup, post-run stretches, cross-training and strength training would mitigate this risk to a great extent. This is my learning which pulled down the mileage a bit.
• Procrastinating the “First Step”: The toastmaster’s journey would have started long back in 2018. And it is the delayed first step that cascaded into two years of delay in commencing this exciting journey. Probably becoming a little bit more comfortable with the unknown / ambiguity would help avoid repeating this.?

I cannot call it the end without underscoring two key events of 2021:?

1.?????Professionally, I have undergone my first lateral change. I enjoyed contributing to my last organization's success and looking forward to replicating the success story in the new firm as well.

2.?????On the personal front, I am grateful about tying the marriage knot as I envision creating lots of memories with my wife.

Well, the year 2022 is already kicked in and I am looking at the following areas to embark on the journey:

• The journey from TM Vishal to DTM Vishal means committing to speech crafting and speech delivery. (DTM here stands for Distinguished Toastmaster)
• Quality family time – away from Mobile, TV, social media, etc.
• Sticking with journaling to give wings to thoughts.?
• Return to the drawing board to carve path for future self.
• Injury-free running throughout the year for a better #YearInSport and even more KMs / Miles under the shoes.

Previous blogs of my yearly Series:

1. “Revisiting 2020 and Perspective for 2021” dated January 17, 2021. URL: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/yearly-series-revisiting-2020-perspective-2021-vishal-kumar/
2. "Reinventing with 'lifelong learning' in 2020" dated January 15, 2020. URL: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/reinventing-lifelong-learning-2020-vishal-kumar/
3. "Handover from 2018 to 2019 & To-Do List" dated January 5, 2019. URL: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/handover-from-2018-2019-to-do-list-vishal-kumar/
4. "Been there, Done that of 2017" dated December 28, 2017. URL: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/been-done-2017-vishal-kumar/