My journey to success against all odds | Prathiba Leo | TEDxChennaiInstituteOfTechnologyWomen

Back in school, I was this confident and poised young girl, who believed in herself so much that irrespective of the critiques, I was headstrong and the first one to get on stage at most competitions. Well, you know, when you’re in your teens, you’re already pumped up with enormous energy and to top it off with the icing of confidence, then you are an unstoppable force. This all was possible by the way I was brought up by my family. My father was the driving force of inspiration back in my school and college days. We used to tell each other everything. Papa would always say that when I was a couple of months old he was in a financial glitch & that I as a baby would comfort him by giving him hugs & kisses. So that’s how I was to him. A diamond & his Lil girl as he would describe. So 17 years of being pampered made me the kid who knew nothing in the world other than Papa & his love.

I am not ashamed to say that I didn’t know the basic cost of provisions that was brought home. And the day he breathed his last, is the day I had lost a friend, my Dad & most importantly, my backbone. Little did I know about the reality & the bad side of people. I was betrayed by my friends. I was left to battle the pain alone. Went through a failed relationship where I was cheated upon. And that was the darkest period of my life. 3 completely devastated years.

I was demolished and my life was shattered into pieces through my Dad’s passing. I went into a quiet lull zone for over a year and I never even believed that I would ever come out of this shock. I did attend college, but I was like a corpse who was alive (I was dead altogether) and yet there wasn’t any helping hand from my mates in college.

It took me 1.5 years to accept the reality and when I knew that I was losing it all…I shifted my focus entirely into studying. I feared so much that my body started shaking every time. And my classmates made fun of me so much that I wanted to quit. My family was extremely supportive and made sure that I was always surrounded by them. In retrospect, back then, I was fighting a battle with my mind and it was difficult to put into words as to how it actually felt.

So, somehow, I pushed the years and reached the final year of my studies. I tried so hard to accept normality. This is when I started writing a diary. I poured in all my thoughts positive and negative and I wrote my heart out. I have a pile of books where I have written and written and written. And I started seeing a change within the final semester of my college. I started gaining courage to look at myself in the mirror and talk to myself. I was still suffering in silence, but this time around, I gave assurance to myself that after all that had happened I still got back up and fought it all alone without the so-called confidante.

To everyone’s surprise in college, I worked so hard and I cleared all my semesters without a history of an arrears and I topped my University exams. I got placed in the most prestigious organization within 3 months of graduating. (I was the first in my class to get placed). Like a guiding light, I could still feel my father’s presence, 8 years later, after 4 promotions, 2 post grad degrees later, I have evolved as a Millennial Entrepreneur and doing amazingly well both as a Program Lead as well as in my freelance career
Prathiba Leo is a Corporate Communication Expert in a corporate firm. A polyglot and an avid reader
and writer by passion. Her forte lies in communicating beyond barriers and being a polyglot has
helped her carve the niche in communication. She believes in creating content that makes people
engrossed in her work. She truly feels that you must bring your whole self to the table if you want to
thrive in today’s crazy world; your personality, your sense of humor, and most importantly, your heart.
And that’s exactly how she would like to summarize herself.Beyond her professional achievements
of working with companies like Amazon and Walmart, she is also a Content writer, Copywriter,
Language Expert and a Blogging Coach This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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