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By:

Asha Tripathi

14 April 2025 at 1:35:28 pm

Stop Comparing, Start Growing

Success does not grow in comparison; it grows in focus. Over the years, women have made significant strides in every sphere of life. From managing homes to leading organisations, from nurturing families to building successful careers, women have proved that strength and resilience are deeply rooted in their nature. Financial independence has become a significant milestone for many women today, bringing with it confidence, dignity, and the freedom to shape one’s own destiny. However, along...

Stop Comparing, Start Growing

Success does not grow in comparison; it grows in focus. Over the years, women have made significant strides in every sphere of life. From managing homes to leading organisations, from nurturing families to building successful careers, women have proved that strength and resilience are deeply rooted in their nature. Financial independence has become a significant milestone for many women today, bringing with it confidence, dignity, and the freedom to shape one’s own destiny. However, along with growth has come another silent challenge — the tendency to constantly observe, compare, and sometimes even compete with the journeys of others. But a crucial question arises: Is it necessary to track the growth of others in order to grow ourselves? From my personal experience of more than two decades as an entrepreneur, I have realised something very powerful — true growth begins the moment we stop looking sideways and start looking within. A Small Beginning I had a flourishing career of teaching abroad, but when I restarted my career after moving back to India, my beginning was extremely small. My very first assignment was a simple home tuition for a single student, and the amount I earned was meagre. There was nothing glamorous about it. No recognition, no large batches, no big earnings. Just one student and one opportunity. But instead of worrying about how others were doing, how many students they had, or how much they were earning, I made a conscious decision—my only focus would be on improving myself. I focused on teaching better, preparing better, and becoming more disciplined and consistent. And slowly, without even realising it, things began to grow. One student became two, two became a small group, and gradually, over the years, the work expanded beyond what I had initially imagined. Looking back today, I can confidently say that the growth did not happen because I competed with others. It happened because I competed with myself yesterday. Comparison Creates Noise When we keep watching others' journeys too closely, we unknowingly divert our own energy. Comparison creates unnecessary noise in our minds. It brings doubts, insecurities, and sometimes even negativity. Instead of walking our own path with clarity, we start questioning our speed, our direction, and our worth. True success grows through focus, not comparison. Every woman has her own story, her own pace, and her own struggles that others may never see. The path of one person can never be identical to another's. So comparing journeys is like comparing two different rivers flowing towards the same ocean — each with its own route, its own curves, and its own rhythm. As women, we already carry many responsibilities. We balance emotions, relationships, work, and society's expectations. In such a life, the last thing we need is the burden of comparison with one another. Instead, what we truly need is support for each other. When women encourage women, something extraordinary happens. Confidence grows. Opportunities multiply. Strength becomes collective rather than individual. There is enough space in the world for every woman to create her own identity. Each of us can build our own niche without stepping on someone else's path. Choose Encouragement Envy weakens us, but encouragement empowers us. Rather than questioning how someone else is progressing, we can ask a more meaningful question: "How can I grow a little better than I was yesterday?" Lift As You Rise Today, after twenty years of experience, the most valuable lesson I have learned is simple yet profound — focus on your own work with honesty and dedication, and success will quietly follow you. We, women, are capable, resilient, and creative. We do not need to pull each other down or compete in unhealthy ways. Instead, we can lift each other up while building our own dreams. Because when one woman rises, she does not rise alone. She inspires many others to believe that they can rise, too. And perhaps that is the most beautiful form of success. (The writer is a tutor based in Thane. Views personal.)

AI’s Reality Check

It started with great excitement, the kind we have seen before whenever something new promises to change our lives. In tea shops, offices and online discussions, people spoke in awe about machines that could diagnose diseases, drive cars, analyse mountains of data, create art, write computer code and even talk back like humans. Companies rushed to show their Artificial Intelligence (AI) plans, investors poured in money, and share prices climbed rapidly, almost as if they could only go up.


Wall Street mirrored this optimism. US indices marched upward, powered by heavyweight technology names. Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta and Tesla became shorthand for the future itself, while financial giants such as Visa and JP Morgan highlighted how deeply AI was penetrating payments, banking and risk management. The so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ - Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla command a combined market capitalisation larger than the entire Chinese economy.


Then came the pause, stock prices corrected, funding became cautious. Soon, people started using a familiar word – ‘bubble.’  But before we rush to declare a crash and enjoy saying “we told you so,” it is worth pausing for a calmer look. What we may be seeing is not a collapse, but a sensible pause. In simple terms, it is the market taking a breath, separating big promises from practical progress.


Early euphoria

Every technological shift arrives wearing the borrowed clothes of history. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s promised a new economy and briefly delivered inflated valuations before crashing spectacularly. The housing bubble of the mid-2000s had wrapped excess in the comforting language of bricks and safety, only to expose the dangers of easy money.


Artificial intelligence, however, is a slightly different guest at the party. Unlike many dot.com firms that had websites but no revenues, AI already works. It translates languages, spots tumours, predicts supply chains, flags fraud and writes serviceable emails.


Markets, being emotional creatures, tend to price the distant future into the impatient present. In the last two years, expectations raced ahead of deployment. Every company presentation suddenly included an AI slide, often placed strategically between ‘vision’ and ‘growth.’ Investors rewarded ambition generously.


The recent cooling in US indices has been driven less by disappointment and more by arithmetic. Training large AI models is expensive. Chips are scarce and monetisation takes time. When quarterly numbers from even admired leaders such as Amazon, Microsoft or Tesla did not immediately match long-term storytelling, markets adjusted their spectacles.


This adjustment is being interpreted by some as a bubble deflating. Yet, corrections are the market’s way of asking better questions. Who will pay, how much, and for what exact value? These are not hostile queries. They are relevant ones.


History suggests bubbles burst when the core assumption proves false. The assumption behind AI - that intelligence can be automated in useful ways - has already been demonstrated. The uncertainty lies elsewhere: scale, costs and returns. How widely can AI be deployed? How quickly can expenses fall? Which sectors benefit first, and which resist longest?


The dot.com crash did not kill the internet. It killed weak business models. Amazon survived, pets.com did not. The housing crisis did not end home ownership. It exposed reckless lending. In hindsight, these episodes look less like endings and more like filters.


AI appears to be passing through a similar filter. Capital is becoming selective. Grand claims are being replaced by specific use cases. Instead of “AI will change everything,” the pitch is quietly shifting to “AI will reduce processing time by 25 pc”.


There is also a geographic angle. Much of the AI exuberance was priced in global markets, while adoption is unfolding unevenly. In countries like India, AI is less a luxury toy and more a productivity tool. Banks use it to detect fraud, farmers to forecast weather, startups to scale customer support.


Regulators, meanwhile, have entered the discussion - another sign of maturity. Debates around data use, bias and accountability are gaining momentum. Regulation is often dismissed as a drag on innovation, yet it can function as a steering wheel rather than a brake.


The real irony lies in our impatience. We demand revolutions to justify quarterly earnings and expect general intelligence to arrive by next Tuesday. When that fails to materialise, disappointment sets in. History tells a different story. Every transformative technology -electricity, automobiles, smartphones - passed through phases when investors doubted its economics and timing.


What we are seeing now is not a loud burst but a quiet recalibration. AI is shifting from promise to process.  Labelling this phase an ‘AI bubble’ makes for catchy headlines but ignores nuance.


(The writer is a retired Bengaluru-based banker. Views personal.)


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