In graduate school, I was part of a team that invented a groundbreaking infant incubator for the world’s most vulnerable communities. We launched a company that helped save hundreds of thousands of premature babies. There were some incredible highs along the way. I was invited to present our technology to President Obama at the White House. Beyoncé personally handed me a check to support our work.
My job was more than a job. It was my purpose. My identity. The sole focus of my life. For a decade, I had sacrificed everything in my life to keep the company afloat—my time, my relationships, my sanity.
But ultimately, it had failed. I had failed.
So yes, this is the story of a wipeout. Not just the one that left me shaking on the shore that day, but the collapse of the dream I’d poured my soul into. When it all came crashing down, I didn’t just lose a dream. I lost myself.
My wipeout was the beginning of a multiyear quest, in which I traded my dedication to my career for a different obsession: piecing myself back together. I became that woman. The one who saw signs in her morning tea leaves and planned her life based on vision boards and manifestations. I chased answers in the world’s most iconic waves. I sat in days of silent meditation in the Indonesian jungle, went on psychedelic journeys, and searched for my inner child in all the wrong places. I burned holes in my legs for an Amazonian frog poison ceremony to cleanse my soul. I went to every self-help seminar I could find. I even talked one of the world’s foremost trauma researchers into becoming my therapist.
If every journey begins with a call, mine came from within.
Fix me, it cried.
Save me, it pleaded.
***
Even as I gained confidence in my role, I couldn’t shake the sense that I had something to prove. To me, being a leader meant I had to keep myself composed at all times. Someone could barge into my office with a full- blown crisis that had me on the edge of meltdown, and two minutes later, I’d be leading our all-hands meeting with a practiced smile. I could have won an Academy Award.
I’d like to thank my father for teaching me how to take an ass-beating like a soldier. And thank you to my mother for teaching me how to hide all challenges and pretend everything is fine.
One day, between a particularly emotional field visit, a disagreement among the founders, and the latest series of vendors failing to deliver on their promises, I broke down crying in a meeting. The tears came suddenly and I couldn’t stop them. Afterward, I was mortified.
The next day, Raghu, our head of marketing, stopped me in the hallway.
“Thank you for being vulnerable yesterday,” he said.
“Oh!” I brushed my hair back, flustered. I’d hoped everyone had forgotten. “I’m sorry. I’m usually together.”
“No,” insisted Raghu. “I mean it. Seeing you soften is what we needed. It gives us permission to be vulnerable as well.”
I looked at him blankly.
“We see you as this super- person,” he explained. “Always so composed, never needing a break or sleep, never fazed by anything. But for the rest of us, it’s unattainable.”
He went on to tell me that everyone was tired. That the work we were doing was taxing, not just logistically but emotionally. Everyone felt it, but because I was at the helm and maintained such airtight composure, they felt they had to do the same. I stood there, letting his words sink in.
In trying to keep it together, I’d been inadvertently teaching my team what I’d been taught growing up: that emotional expression was dangerous. That showing vulnerability was weakness. I’d received these messages my whole life— as a woman, as an immigrant, as an Asian. To prove I could lead, I’d prioritized composure above connection. True leadership, I realized, wasn’t about perfection or invincibility. It was about authenticity. And authenticity required vulnerability.
“Thank you for your honesty,” I told Raghu.
What I did not know how to articulate to him, or even admit to myself at the time, was that I didn’t actually know how to be vulnerable. And showing weakness was a skill I had never learned.
***
At the last team meeting I led in India, I stood in front of our team of nearly eighty people. They had become like family to me.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to lead this team,” I said, my voice raw with emotion. “I still remember when we were first setting out on this journey. Rahul said to me, ‘No matter what happens, we’re going to make our mark on the world.’ And that’s exactly what we’ve done. Each of you has made a mark—by saving lives, by helping others, by showing what’s possible with passion, dedication, and purpose.”
Looking at the team, I felt both pride and gratitude. I thought back to the conversation with Denise, who didn’t believe I was fit to be a CEO. In the years since, I had proven otherwise. I had built and inspired a team. I had raised millions of dollars. I had launched a lifesaving product, crafted a strategy, and, together with this fiercely hardworking team, we had saved more than 50,000 lives. Fifty thousand lives.
I had done all the things I once believed I couldn’t because I stayed committed to our mission. Even when I didn’t feel worthy, and even when I questioned my own abilities. “I can’t tell you all how grateful I am to each of you,” I said. “And while there’s still a lot of work ahead, I am certain we will reach our goal of saving one million lives—and beyond.”
My last week in India, I got a tattoo on my arm.
Pranayama. The Sanskrit word for breath. In yogic philosophy, it also meant the expansion of individual life force into universal energy.
My time in India would forever be marked by just that—the potential for good that comes when people join together in service of something bigger than themselves.
Pranayama.
Breath.
I could finally breathe again.
