Yes, You CAN & Anyone CAN, If there is a STRONG WILL, Here is aStory!!!!!

Let me start off by congratulating my lovely wife, Neha, on officially becoming an iOS programmer. It is her story that inspired me to write this blog.  I am dedicating this blog to her on this Valentine's day as it is a proud moment for both of us. I will talk to you about the story after a few paragraphs. Stay tuned!!!

Do you sometimes feel  that you are in a wrong profession? Or Do you think that achieving a particular level of success requires you to gain additional degree and knowledge? Did you happen to be in your current industry or job by accident? Do you feel, given a choice you will change your profession? Do you come home from job feeling unhappy and upset? 

If your answer is YES, this blog is for you.

I always believe that your choice of profession or the industry that you work in should be driven by your passion, interest and by what you enjoy doing in life and should not be forced upon by your parents, your friends, family members, relatives, society or your circumstances.

At the age of 12, I knew that I want to make a career out of computers and that I want to be a computer engineer. I decided to take maths from 10 - 12 standard to realize my dream. I took engineering enterance exam and obtained a Computer Science degree as I was extremely clear in what I want to do in life.

I can tell you, for sure, the one thing that allowed me to make a decision for myself was my habit of following current affairs for few hours daily. I will watch and read news related to computers and how it is changing the world around us and I got fascinated. It's the idea of using computers to connect people across the globe which made me fall in love with it.

Till date, I never repent my decision. I enjoy my day at work everyday. Because when you love your profession, when it matches your interest and if you enjoy doing it, it no longer remains only as work for you. It becomes an integral part of your life.

Unfortunately, for many, many of us, when we were in schools, the future choices of education and the field is decided by our parents or people around us. Often times the choices are driven by circumstances and scenarios around.

I do not know the exact percentage but I believe there is a very high percentage of us, who are, in their profession by other's choice & by accident. Most of these people go through thoughts of dissatisfaction at job or they take work as an overhead often times. This does not mean that these people are not successful, many of these people are extremely successful but they still are not satisfied.

The scenario can be best explained by a real inspiring story. So here you go .....

Meet my wife, Neha. She is an Electronics & Communication engineer by qualification and holds a first class degree with distinction in engineering. She passed out in 2007, possibly one of the worst year to pass out of graduation due to the recession.

 She came to Mumbai in search of a job and joined a .NET course to beat the competition. There are lakhs and lakhs of freshers searching for a job in our market. With jobs hard to come by, many join training to learn more skills and make them worthy of a job. She spent 1 year without a job and got herself trained in .Net.

She cracked her first interview of .Net and joined a very small organization. Unfortunately she had to quit the organization the very first day due to stringent policies, poor culture and a bond.

She then got interviewed for .Net @ Reliance and she cleared it. She joined Reliance but the .NET project was shelved due to recession. Reliance realized that she had electronics background and that she is good at networking and hence offered her to move to computer networking department.

From then on, she had a very very successful career @ Reliance. She got high performance ratings and many awards. She had a 9 hr job at one of the India's best companies in networking field and a company with great infrastructure. She had good enough salary too.

But GUESS WHAT , she was still not satisfied. She will not enjoy her work.

As I started to discuss her career with her, one thing I realized that she is very ambitious and she is someone who does not like monotonous life. I also realized that she is someone who can only be happy and satisfied if she is enjoying her work and if she feels that her brain is utilized enough.

First I thought it may be that she needs to change the department to get more challenging work. She changed the department but she was still not satisfied. Then I thought, may be, she needs to change the company to get more challenging work. I also thought that, may be, she will get satisfied and happy if she also gets a better package. Reliance is very good but not when it comes to package.

 She was offered a very good package and a great position at another company. She joined it but she was still not satisfied. By now she had everything that anyone will crave for, Great Designation, Fat Package and extremely good work in networking field.

NOW WHAT, She was still not satisfied. She will still not enjoy her work.

After a lot of consultation with her and discussions, I realized that she is one of those who will only be satisfied as long her she does what she loves, enjoys, is interested in and is passionate about her work. Brand, Company, CTC, etc does not make her love her job.

Just around this time, she had started using iPhone and she started to tell me that she loves cool iPhone apps and told me the fact that she always wanted to create a cool looking web app when mobile apps were not around. She also told me that given a choice, she would have done computer engineering. 

By then, She had spent a year using iPhone and I was getting a sense that she might want to try programming. I taught her Java for 15 days, she liked it but she was not very attracted. This was when when she did not have iPhone and by teaching her Java, I wanted to flex and asses her inclination towards programming. I also taught her, Android. She liked it as she liked the idea of building a mobile apps.

At that time, during 2011, iPhone had superior user experience and extra cool feel than Android. The fact that she loved iPhone, iPod and other Apple products, she insisted to learn iPhone programming.

But the CLEAR realisation happened only when she started using her iPhone. she started to get clarity on what she may want to attempt with her career. She tried to learn iPhone along side her job but that was not working out.

Finally, she decided that she will quit her job and start self learning on iPhone programming. It was a big decision. She has always been self dependent post her 12th standard and this will mean she will not get her paycheck. She will have to depend on my salary. This also meant that we will have to delay our plans to buy a house and to start a family. Believe me, it was a bold decision. I respect her for making one of the toughest decisions of her life.

She spent 6 months self learning. I could only guide her as I would hardly get time from my job to teach her.  I wanted her to explore for herself and understand the concepts before she joins costly training with no guarantee that she will be taught correctly. Also, self learning will give her confidence and allow her to asses the quality her teacher when she looks for professional training.

After 6 months of self training, we decided that now she knows enough of iOS development, at some exposure level, to be able to make sense of concepts taught in class. We started searching for a good teacher. I wanted her to gain enough skills before she starts looking for a job. She spent another 6 months with a professional trainer learning iOS concepts and building sample apps. 

I must say we remain indebted to Lynda.com vedios and her trainer for enabling her to achieve her dreams. 

It had been 12 months of prep work and she was still out of job. She did not even start job search because we felt she should first garner necessary skills. I knew, once she starts job, she will hardly get much time to self learn. Also, since she didn't have strong programming background as she was an electronics engineer, it became necessary for her to gain basic programming knowledge along with specific iOS developent knowledge. This will also give her an edge over lakhs of freshers in the market.

She was under extreme self pressure, depressed, tensed, upset many times and she will often cry. She is a 21st century women and she has aspirations but she was worried that she has been out of job for a while and that she is starting from scratch. It was a very very tough year for her. I was doing 12-15 hrs at work including most weekends and hence she will be alone at home for hrs for many, many days and the loneliness coupled with job search stress was eating her from within. 

But to throw away all the negativity,she will dance, sing and often times, I will have lengthy discussions with her emphasising that her strong efforts will pay off. But it was tough to wait and wait and wait ....for 15 months!!!!!!

She had many easy choices:

1) Continue with the status quo.
2) Continue to be unhappy and force herself to feel happy.
3) Quit Job and immediately look for any programming job as a fresher without studies.
4) Use my influence and network to get a job.
5) Use shortcuts and not so ethical ways to get job. We have known that many people fake their experience but this was strictly against our value system.
6) Continue to pursue her hobby of dancing and singing and live on  my paycheck. 

She choose none of the above and she chose a tough and long way to achieve success. She learned that if she need to achieve success in the right way, there are no short cuts.

After 15 months of handwork and pain, Neha can proudly say that she won and that she won against all odds without compromising her principles and values.She cracked all three interview she gave.

She made me proud. She made her family and my family proud.She made every women proud.

She proved that you do not need to be slave to your past, circumstances and that life is about exploring. She will now not repent that she never tried. She will also be a living example for many of us who are trapped in doing things we do not like doing.

LIFE IS ONE,  MAKE IT COUNT. I WILL ALWAYS ENCOURAGE HER TO KEEP EXPERIMENTING AND KEEP DOING WHAT SHE WILL LOVE DOING.

I SALUTE MY WIFE AND CELEBRATE HER WOMANHOOD.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, MY LOVE, NEHA.