Leaning Into Hope (One Year In)

I recently read W. H. Auden’s poem “September 1, 1939,” which he wrote at the start of World War II, in a moment shaped by fear, uncertainty, and the feeling that the ground was shifting under everyone’s feet. The poem moves through disillusionment and moral clarity, and it keeps returning to a question that feels uncomfortably current in turbulent times: what do we choose to do with each other when the world feels unstable?

It has been a year since I started this entrepreneurial journey, and this year rewired what freedom and security mean to me.

The version of security I learned early

Growing up in India, I grew up around family business, but the businesses were run by my male family members. I saw their grit and hard work as they provided for us, and I especially saw my dad’s work ethic as he ran a successful business for more than fifty years. At the same time, I also saw the hard work my mom put in to raise me and my sister. She cooked fresh meals every day, and she took us on local transportation in the Mumbai heat for swimming, dancing, and art so we could become “independent.” They worked in tandem so my sister and I could have options, and for a long time I believed that good education and hard work were the most reliable path to financial independence.

Because of what I saw, I formed a very specific picture of entrepreneurship. I thought running a business meant working around the clock, carrying constant financial uncertainty, and never fully being able to turn work off. I also could not imagine how I, as a woman who planned to get married and have kids, could juggle home and caregiving responsibilities, even with the most supportive partner, while also running a business. I did not have many examples around me of women entrepreneurs, and I internalized the idea that the “safe” path was a stable job with clear promotions and predictable benefits.

I also noticed something else in my family’s relationship to business. My dad and uncles did not start businesses because they were “passionate” about something. They saw a need, and they converted that need into a business. My dad’s business involved being a trader for rice bran oil, where he traded between manufacturers of unprocessed oil and the industries that used that oil in products like soap and paint. Over time, he became very good at building relationships, and as a younger version of me I could not fully understand how someone could do work like that for decades without needing it to be tied to a single “passion.”

So I told myself that entrepreneurship was not for me, and I went looking for my passion instead.

The version of legitimacy I chased

After a Master’s degree and a few years in Corporate America, I realized that I liked connecting people and ideas far more than I liked IT project management. I wanted to spend my life helping people work across differences, find shared interests, and collaborate well, especially because the challenges we face as a society are increasingly complex and interconnected. I decided to commit to that direction and pursued a PhD so I could learn everything I could about how to connect people and ideas in better ways.

Academic life is a good fit for many people, but it did not satisfy the kind of impact I was trying to create. I was doing research, writing papers, and building models and frameworks, and yet I kept feeling like I was still in a bubble. I wanted the ideas to move, to travel, to become practice, and I could not shake the sense that the impact I was envisioning would not happen if I stayed only within academia.

At the same time, the 9-to-5 disappeared anyway. I felt like I was never doing enough, and I felt pressure to say yes to everything because I was continuously seeking external validation. I was burned out, and I was still unfulfilled.

Underneath all of this, I was holding a belief that I did not fully name for a long time: I believed that in order for people to take me and my ideas seriously, I needed a title. I believed I needed to be a professor, and I believed that if I left academia I would not be able to come back.

Finding my passion (and naming what I actually care about)

Even in the middle of burnout, I had never been clearer about what mattered to me. I wanted to engage as many people as possible in why we need to bring diverse perspectives together, learn how to find shared interests, and collaborate to solve the complex challenges we are facing as a society instead of competing for resources. I wanted to make the knowledge and tools around “good partnering” practices more widely available, so more people could make different choices instead of defaulting to competition and scarcity.

Seeing entrepreneurship differently

When I was trying to understand why I felt so unfulfilled despite being so busy, I started having conversations that changed how I saw my options. I began meeting people who were doing meaningful work outside the paths I had assumed were required, and those conversations helped loosen my grip on the idea that legitimacy only comes from institutions. Soon after, I was given an opportunity to try partnership consulting, and I loved it. What surprised me was not only how energizing the work felt, but also how clear it became that this was a real way to contribute. It was practical, relational, and grounded in the very thing I cared about most, which is helping people collaborate well.

Even with that clarity, leaving stability was still scary. The structure of a stable job can feel like the only acceptable definition of security, especially when you have responsibilities and people depending on you. Around the same time, I had a conversation that brought me back to my dad and uncles with new eyes. I realized that I had only been paying attention to one part of the story, which was how hard they worked, and I had not given enough weight to what their work made possible. For all the hard work my dad put in, he was also present for his family during vacations, festivals, and weddings. I remembered visiting my uncles during summer break and watching them come home for lunch, spend time with us, rest during scorching hot afternoons, have chai, and then head back to work after 4 p.m.

Those memories helped me name what freedom and security mean to me now. They look like being able to pick up my kids from school and be present at the end of the day. They look like having slower and more regulated starts to the morning. They look like getting movement in every day because health is foundational, not optional. They also look like making time to connect with my partner in a season of life where it is easy for everything to become logistics and caregiving if we are not intentional.

After a lot of reflecting and planning, I took the plunge.

What I did not fully understand before: no one builds alone

Soon after, the world changed in ways none of us could have predicted. People lost jobs and entire sectors shifted, and my imposter syndrome came back strongly. I doubted my decisions more than once, and I felt the familiar pull toward the version of security that is easier to explain on paper.

What also became clear to me in this first year is that no one builds alone. Every time I met someone new or reconnected with an old colleague and shared the vision, I received support and encouragement that helped me keep going. I found the Meaningful Work Collective community among people who were also navigating transitions and building portfolio careers, and that kind of community does not just provide companionship. It helps people stay brave long enough to keep building.

I have also been deeply grateful to be building this work in partnership with Pallavi. Building alongside someone has taught me how much it matters to have a shared vision, complementary strengths, and an honest way of navigating the learning curve together. This year included the practical realities of entrepreneurship, including building a website and learning about taxes, and it also included the deeper work of aligning how we show up with what we say we value.

Over the last few months, we have had conversations with people doing extraordinary work, including impactful research and genuine efforts to change systems and communities in their own ways. It has been an awe-inspiring experience to listen and learn, and it has also been humbling to see how many people are leaning into hope even when fear-based decision-making is everywhere. These relationships and conversations have strengthened my belief that collaboration and kinship are not “soft” ideas. They are strategies for survival and for building something better.

Where I am landing after year one

My year one as an entrepreneur has had ebbs and flows, and many of them were out of my control. The learning curve has been real, and the inner work has been real too. At the same time, I feel firmly rooted in connection, meaningful work, alignment, and freedom, and I am grateful for the full arc that brought me here.

I did not have a woman entrepreneur role model in my immediate family, but I had my mom, who sacrificed so much so I could have choices. I also have the support of a partner who co-shares the responsibilities of raising children so I can pursue this dream. I do not want insecurity to take the wheel when I have been given the privilege of possibility.

Before I end, I want to say thank you to everyone I connected with this past year who cheered me on, invited us into rooms and conversations, made introductions, shared our work, amplified our mission and message, gave thoughtful feedback, and took a chance on us by hiring us. I felt held up by relationships in a way I did not fully understand I would need, and I am carrying that gratitude with me into year two.

As I step into year two, I feel more committed than ever to the idea that we can create a better world by choosing collaboration and kinship more often than fear and scarcity. I am grateful, and I am leaning into hope, because I genuinely believe there is no other choice if we want to create a better world for our kids.

“We must love each other, and die.” I keep returning to that line from Auden, not as a slogan, but as a grounding. This year reminded me that the life I want and the work I want are built the same way: through relationships, through presence, and through choosing hope even when certainty is not available.