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By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 3:28:38 am

Why Growth Feels Lonely

Success has a strange way of changing the atmosphere around a person. The climb is crowded, competitive, and loud — but the higher you rise, the quieter it becomes. Many founders who once dreamed of hitting big revenues and building powerful teams are surprised to find that the peak feels more isolating than they ever imagined. They have stability, scale, and status — yet they carry responsibilities, decisions, and pressures that very few people around them can fully understand. And that...

Why Growth Feels Lonely

Success has a strange way of changing the atmosphere around a person. The climb is crowded, competitive, and loud — but the higher you rise, the quieter it becomes. Many founders who once dreamed of hitting big revenues and building powerful teams are surprised to find that the peak feels more isolating than they ever imagined. They have stability, scale, and status — yet they carry responsibilities, decisions, and pressures that very few people around them can fully understand. And that isolation doesn’t come from weakness; it comes from leadership. People stay close to successful individuals, but often with expectations — a favour, an introduction, an opportunity, some hidden benefit. Wealth and influence attract attention, but rarely authenticity. And for many business owners, especially those running companies upward of Rs 90 crores, this is where the silent disconnect begins. They are surrounded by people but starved of genuine connection. Yet beneath this loneliness lies a deeper, more strategic issue that most leaders never pause to consider: the brand they project externally no longer matches the identity they need internally. Their success is visible — deals, achievements, awards, numbers. But personal branding isn’t just about visibility. It is about emotional resonance, relational depth, and the quality of the people who enter your space because of who you are, not what you have built. Here’s the truth most high-performing founders overlook: loneliness at the top doesn’t come from success — it comes from the absence of aligned relationships. And that gap is bridged only when leaders intentionally shape their personal brand. When a founder’s personal brand becomes clear, something shifts. People begin to see the human behind the entrepreneur. They understand the leader’s values, personality, and intentions. The communication becomes more meaningful. Teams speak more openly. Partnerships become smoother. Even day-to-day interactions feel less transactional and more genuine. A well-aligned personal brand acts as an emotional filter — drawing in people who resonate with your energy and quietly distancing the ones who don’t. For business owners managing large-scale operations, the need today is not popularity. It is positioning. Presence. Influence. Trust. Because once your personal brand reflects depth, clarity, confidence, and relatability, you stop attracting people who want to take something from you — and start attracting people who want to contribute, collaborate, and grow alongside you. With the right personal brand, authority no longer has to come with isolation. Leadership becomes magnetic rather than demanding. Teams align faster. Networks strengthen naturally. And the circle around you evolves from being crowded to being meaningful. The irony is that most founders think their next stage of growth requires new strategies, new hires, or new markets. But often, what they actually need is a stronger sense of identity — one that the world can see, feel, and connect with. Because expansion doesn’t only happen in revenue charts; it happens in relationships, and relationships are built on perception. The clearer your identity, the stronger your influence. And the stronger your influence, the easier it becomes for people to trust you, align with you, and open doors that were previously inaccessible. So if the world around you has gotten quieter as you’ve risen higher, perhaps it is not a sign of distance — but a sign that it’s time to realign how people experience you. Not just as the owner of a successful business, but as a leader whose presence carries credibility, warmth, and clarity. Success is fulfilling, growth is exciting, but connection is what gives leadership its depth. And only a well-aligned personal brand can create the kind of connection that feels genuine, nourishing, and empowering. If you’ve reached a stage where your achievements speak loudly but your identity feels misunderstood or unseen, then it may be time to reshape the way the world perceives you. Not to impress, not to sell, but to finally be experienced in the way you truly intend to be. If this resonates with your journey, you’re welcome to reach out for a conversation here: https://sprect.com/pro/divyaaadvaani Not for introductions. Not for transactions. For alignment — and perhaps for the first step toward a personal brand that grows with you, not away from you. (The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

The Favourite Internet Service of Proxies and Non-State Actors

Proxies and Non-State Actors

The Indian Army’s III Corps, also known as Spear Corps, and the Assam Rifles, in their joint searches in the districts of Kagpokpi, Imphal East, Chandel, and Churachandpur, have stumbled upon not only a diverse cache of handheld weapons but also a new-age device that has sent tremors in strategic circles. That new-age device is the swanky-looking receiver terminal of Starlink. The same Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, offers low-latency and high-bandwidth internet services to commercial markets worldwide through its constellation of thousands of satellites flying in low-Earth orbit. Interestingly, this terminal was found with ‘RPF-PLA’ written on it - which hints that it was in the hands of the Revolutionary People’s Front, the political arm of the People’s Liberation Army Manipur, which runs a government-in-exile from its headquarters in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Now the question is, how did a Starlink terminal arrive in the hands of RPF-PLA militants in Manipur?


Bangladesh, under the Sheikh Haseena government in April 2024, faced a tremendous internet outage when the SEA-ME-WE-5 submarine cable, one of the only two cables landing in Bangladesh, ruptured 400 km off the coast of Singapore. Whether it was accidental or sabotage is not known. The same month, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission began preparing guidelines for non-geostationary satellite operators to offer broadband services in the country. This was a big boost to Starlink, which has been interested in commencing its commercial operations in Bangladesh. Starlink is expensive for a common Bangladeshi. Its terminal kits cost around USD 600, and monthly services are around USD 120 for unlimited data. The current Bangladeshi broadband rates are way cheaper at USD 5 for a 5 Mbps monthly subscription. The irony is that before the legitimate commercial services began in Bangladesh, militant groups settled in Bangladesh, which have vowed to call Bharat its enemy, have begun to use Starlink. This, by no margin, is India’s first tryst with Starlink, which is now becoming a hot favourite of nefarious actors operating against India. In November 2024, the Indian Coast Guard seized a Myanmarese boat smuggling 6000 kg of methamphetamine, worth USD 4.25 billion, and also enjoying the services of Starlink in Indian waters.


Starlink has been involved in providing humanitarian services from Poland and Germany to Ukraine since the early days of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, it eventually fell into the hands of the neo-Nazi Azov Batallion. It is said that the Russian forces, too, have derived tremendous gains from the use of Starlink terminals purchased from the black markets. Starlink has also made considerable windfalls by entering the civil war-ridden Sudan, where internet services are being offered at exorbitant rates by the Rapid Support Forces militia and when terrestrial internet networks have been disrupted due to the conflict. Sudan has many priorities to be attained before opting for costly internet; peace is one such priority.


These anecdotes are not intended to shoot the messenger - Starlink. They suggest that when a dual-use technology is overly enamoured, that enamourment can deter the critical review and regulation of its operators and end-users. The review and regulation get even more convoluted when militias, non-state actors, and intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies use the same tech for grey-zone activities. So, what is India's immediate solution to what is brewing in Bangladesh and Myanmar? Are the frequent internet disruptions in Pakistan also paving the way for Starlink? The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is moving in that direction, too.


A well-known idiom, “A fool with a tool is still a fool,” becomes too apparent when all these anecdotes are combined into one big picture. India is surrounded by dime a dozen proxies and non-state actors, which thrive on the business of conflict and secession, most sowed by the outgoing colonisers to exploit, nearly a century after imparting independence to this part of the world. These actors are constantly in search of non-interceptable lines of communication that would help them operationally, especially those engaged in guerrilla operations and in geographies that do not permit non-disruptible terrestrial networks. The threat precisely is not symptomatic of Starlink; the threat is ingrained in any direct-to-customer satellite internet service that has a terminal that can be easily backpacked akin to a laptop. But then, it would be wrong to say that these proxies are pulling off all this on their own. There are unknown forces behind these proxies and non-state actors, and Starlink is merely the ‘black-marketed’ tool, a messenger they use for their convenience. The Indian government, at this stage, is stuck in dichotomous circumstances. On the one hand, it wishes to bring Starlink officially into the Indian satellite internet market and be on good terms with Elon, a name now synonymous with efficiency. On the other hand, it finds Starlink being rampantly used by entities that see India as its enemy, a fact that shows our inefficiency in dealing with this situation.


(The author is a Space and Emerging Technology Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai. Views personal.)

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