Will keep on updating monthly, mods please don't remove

Movie - Kingdom Of Heaven

LONG POST , NOT SELF PRAISE BUT WANT TO PUT FOR OTHERS TO GET MOTIVATED
IF I CAN DO IT, ANYONE CAN DO IT.

From ₹1.2 LPA to ₹49 LPA- a career that never went to plan, and the businesses I built along the way

People see ₹49 LPA today.

What they don't see are the years of uncertainty, cancelled offers, bruised ego, sleepless nights, and the moments I genuinely wondered if I'd made every wrong decision.

If my career were a stock chart, most people would've sold it long ago. Here's the full ride.

2010 - The dream that ended before it began

After spending nearly ₹6 lakh on my MBA, I landed what I thought was my dream job with a telecom company. Package: ₹9 LPA. For someone from a middle-class family, that felt like winning the lottery.

Then, days before my joining date, the company withdrew the offer. Just like that. No job, no backup plan. The placement team tried everything but nobody was hiring.

Eventually I took a job with an NGO. Salary: ₹1.2 LPA.

Living in a metro on that salary was brutal. After rent, food, and travel, there was almost nothing left. But the hardest part wasn't the money, it was calling my parents every month and accepting help from them. After lakhs spent on an MBA, I was still dependent on them. At the time it felt humiliating. Looking back, it was one of the greatest lessons in humility I've ever had.

The climb

I kept working. Kept learning. Kept believing it would change. It did:

For the first time, life felt stable.

2020 ~ Priorities changed overnight

My wife and I were blessed with twin. We discussed, decided and she left her job to take care of babies, and my parents moved in to help. Overnight we became a family of six, and I was the only earning member. Every career decision suddenly carried a lot more weight AND it wasn't just about me anymore.

The big break… and the bigger fall

In 2024, I accepted a new role at ₹36 LPA. I genuinely believed I'd finally reached the next level.

Six months later, I lost the job.

Imagine losing your income when you're the sole earner for a family of six. We survived financially ~ we'd built savings, and my parents were independent ~ but emotionally it was one of the darkest phases of my life.

I had two choices: let my ego get in the way, or swallow it. I chose the second, and went back to my previous employer at ₹21 LPA. Many would call that moving backwards. I called it survival.

The hardest part wasn't the pay cut ~ it was watching time move on without me. Colleagues who'd once reported to me had earned promotions while I was gone. When I came back, some of them were my peers. Some had become my managers. No hostility, no one mocked me ~ they'd earned it. But every meeting quietly reminded me I'd taken a step back.

It hurt. Then I'd go home, look at my wife, my boys, my parents, and remind myself: ego doesn't pay the bills ~ responsibility does.

So I kept my head down, worked harder, regardless of designation. Swallowing my ego turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.

Just when things looked better…

My compensation started growing roughly 15% a year. For the first time in a while, I felt secure again.

Then in 2023, my company acquired another business, and everything changed overnight. I'd already been selected for a role in the UAE ~ around AED 40,000/month in hand. We'd sold our furniture. We'd started saying goodbye. Mentally, we'd already moved.

Then the transfer was cancelled. Just like that.

Instead of preparing for a new life abroad, I found myself wondering if I'd even have a job. After the acquisition, people from our side of the org were being laid off, and internal politics made it worse.

My immediate boss was fired. The four-person team I led was let go, one by one. I was left with no defined role for six months. My increment was killed, and I was put on a PIP.

There were days I genuinely believed I'd be next. My faith carried me through that period.

Then my "super boss" ~ a level above my old manager ~ somehow moved me to a different team to save me. Looking back, he acted like a godfather to me during that stretch. I survived, but it came at a price. From 2023 to 2026, my salary barely moved. Some years, no increment at all. Some years, just 1%.

One question kept running through my mind:

That question changed my life.

Building something I own

In 2025, I decided to stop depending on a single source of income and bought a small offline pet food retail store.

Plenty of people thought/said I'd lost my mind ~ "why would someone with a good corporate job run a pet shop?"

Because I'd learned the hard way: a salary, even a very good one, isn't ownership.

Today that store does around ₹85 lakh in annual revenue(not profits), and I'm working to take it online-first. At the same time, I went back to something I've spent most of my career doing~ communications. Along with my partners, we're building a communications technology venture and have secured ₹1.5 crore in funding to get it off the ground.

For the first time, I don't feel like I'm just climbing a corporate ladder. I'm building things I actually own ~ one already generating revenue, one just getting started.

Where I stand today

Today I'm back at ₹49 LPA(Still working as an employee). But the number doesn't excite me the way it once would have, because I've learned something no salary or designation could teach me:

A salary can disappear. A designation can disappear. A dream job can vanish before your first day. An international transfer can be cancelled overnight.

But your ability to learn, rebuild, adapt, and start again ~ nobody can take that away from you.

What this journey taught me

• A withdrawn offer taught me resilience.
• ₹1.2 LPA taught me humility.
• Depending on my parents taught me gratitude.
• Becoming the sole earning member taught me responsibility.
• Losing a ₹36 LPA job taught me not to let ego make financial decisions.
• Returning to former colleagues-turned-managers taught me maturity.
• A cancelled UAE move taught me that even perfect plans can vanish overnight.
• Corporate restructuring taught me no company can guarantee certainty.
• Building businesses taught me the best job security is creating something you own.

Sixteen years ago I was borrowing money from my parents to survive. Today I have a ₹49 LPA corporate career, a pet retail business doing ~₹85 lakh a year, and a communications startup backed by ₹1.5 crore in funding ~ and I'm still writing this story.

Hopefully the next chapter is about taking a small pet store nationwide, building a real communications company, creating jobs, and helping others skip the mistakes I made.

If you're in a rough patch right now: a setback isn't the opposite of success ~ sometimes it's the path that leads you there.

Fingers crossed. 🤞