Zubin Sharma, the CEO of Project Potential—a nonprofit working on sustainable development in the rural district of Kishanganj, Bihar—talks about the problems he faced at the start of his entrepreneurial journey, which led him to question his self-worth as he navigated the challenges of building a successful social impact organisation.
Excerpt:
“By this point—four years into starting Project Potential—having failed twice, the voice of self-doubt became much louder. Despite this, I still sought, with considerable effort, to ignore it. During some moments, I began to wonder if I was the problem; was I becoming a version of those case studies of development work where outsiders create more harm than good?
However, rather than acknowledge it, I unconsciously allowed self-doubt to take the steering wheel, which pushed me to work even harder to figure out a workable model to achieve our vision. There was no question that we needed to find a workable model. But in hindsight, I think I was partly driven by the need to prove my own self-worth to myself through the success of the model.”
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