The butterfly effect is real. One moment can change everything - quietly, unexpectedly, irreversibly.

In September 2024, I landed in London for what I believed was the start of a dream chapter: a prestigious fellowship, a city I loved, and a future I had worked relentlessly to build. I remember stepping off the plane feeling hopeful. Ready. Certain that life was finally aligning.

Twenty-four hours later, that certainty shattered.

I was assaulted on a London street - an experience that carved a fault line straight through my life. Before I even knew how to process the shock, I was on a flight back to India. My body ached. My confidence trembled. My spirit felt broken in ways I couldn’t name.

And yet, this painful moment - this abrupt collapse - became the trigger for a transformation I never saw coming.

Back home, I felt lost, unmoored, unable to return to the person I was before. But instead of forcing myself into old routines, I surrendered. I let life redirect me. I moved onto farms - first in Chennai, then Bangalore, and eventually, far away in Montana. I learned to wake with the sun, breathe in silence, and reconnect with something I had forgotten: myself.

In those months of stillness and soil, something unexpected happened. Words poured out of me - 100,000 of them. A book I had postponed for years began taking shape. Creativity returned like a tide. I launched a podcast, then a newsletter, then a course. I started building things not out of ambition, but out of truth.

And somewhere along the way, an idea that had lived quietly in the back of my mind became a reality: the largest immigrant summit in America. It wasn’t part of any plan. But it was absolutely part of a purpose I didn’t know I had.

Sometimes life collapses so that it can rebuild you. Not into the person you were - but into the person you were meant to become.

Looking back, nothing went to plan. Not one thing. And if you asked me in those early days - sitting alone on that flight back to India, wondering why this had happened - I would’ve given anything to rewrite the moment that changed everything.

But today? I wouldn’t.

Because that moment redirected me towards a life more aligned, more meaningful, and more mine than ever before. It stripped away the noise. It stripped away the illusion of control. And it taught me that purpose doesn’t always show up gently. Sometimes it arrives disguised as chaos.

The butterfly effect is real. One moment can change everything. But sometimes - if you let it - it changes everything for the better.

The butterfly effect is real. One fleeting moment can change the entire trajectory of your life - sometimes in ways you would never choose, and yet would never undo.

In September 2024, I landed in London for what felt like the turning point of my life. A dream fellowship. A new chapter. A fresh start in a city I adored from afar. I arrived with two suitcases, a head buzzing with ideas, and the quiet belief that everything was finally falling into place.

Twenty-four hours later, everything shattered.

I was assaulted on a London street - an experience so sudden, violent, and destabilizing that I remember the blur more than the details. The city I had dreamt about for years no longer felt like a beginning. It felt like a trap. I flew back to India within days, my body safe but my spirit fractured.

I returned home broken, lost, ashamed of breaking down so quickly. I had no framework to explain what happened, no words for the shock crawling under my skin, no roadmap for how to move forward. The life I had planned disappeared overnight.

But here’s the thing about collapse: it creates space. Pain clears the ground for possibilities that would never grow otherwise.

What followed was an unexpected chain reaction - the kind of butterfly effect no one warns you about. I moved to farms across Chennai, Bangalore, and even Montana. Far from the noise of a city, I found myself surrounded by the quiet wisdom of earth, animals, and people who lived life slowly and intentionally. My body softened. My mind opened. My wounds found sunlight.

I wrote - obsessively, urgently, honestly. Over 100,000 words poured out of me. Words that turned into stories, frameworks, ideas. Words that became the foundation of my podcast, my newsletter, my course.

And then something wild happened:
I built the largest immigrant summit in America.

None of this was on the original plan. In fact, nothing went to plan at all.

But everything went on purpose.

That assault - the moment I thought ended everything - actually began everything. It stripped away the false sense of certainty I held onto. It forced me to rebuild my identity from scratch. It pushed me into places I would have never chosen, yet now cannot imagine my life without.

Sometimes life collapses to rebuild you better.
Not kinder. Not easier.
But truer.

I used to think success was about designing a perfect roadmap and executing it flawlessly. Now I know success is often born from the moments you don’t choose, the breaks you don’t anticipate, the storms you don’t see coming.

When life falls apart, pay attention.
The collapse may be the beginning.
The ashes might be the blueprint.

Nothing went to plan - but in hindsight, everything was on purpose.

I was making $200,000 a year - about two crores rupees. I had a job most people dream about. My parents were proud. My life looked stable from the outside. By every conventional measure, I had “made it.”

But every morning, before the emails and meetings began, I would hear a quiet voice ask: Is this really what I want to do for the rest of my life? It was a small question, but one that refused to go away. It sat in my chest like a weight, pressing harder every day.

I stayed because I had worked so hard to get there. The long nights, the sacrifices, the years of effort - it all felt too valuable to let go of. My parents had given up so much for my education. Walking away felt irresponsible, even ungrateful. How could I throw it all away?

And I know I wasn’t alone. Many of us stay in jobs that drain us, in relationships that stopped growing, in cities that no longer fit who we’re becoming. We stay because we’ve already spent years, money, and emotional energy getting there. Leaving feels like waste.

But that feeling - that “I’ve already invested too much to walk away” - is what psychologists call the sunk cost fallacy. We hold on because of what we’ve already poured in, even if it no longer serves us.

For a long time, I was caught in that trap.

I kept replaying just one fear: What if I quit and six months later I’m struggling? What if everything falls apart? That question kept me stuck, looping through worst-case scenarios like a movie I couldn’t pause.

But one day, a different question showed up - a question that changed everything:

What if I don’t leave… and six years later, I’m still this unhappy?

That question hit harder than any fear. It forced me to zoom out from the next six months and look at the next six years. It made me see that staying wasn’t the safe option I thought it was. Sometimes the bigger risk is staying exactly where you are, slowly eroding who you could become.

That was my turning point.

Once I saw that staying would cost me far more than leaving ever could, the decision became clearer. Scary, but clear. Walking away wasn’t running from something - it was walking toward the possibility of something better.

So if you’ve been sitting with this feeling for months, maybe even years… if you feel stuck but don’t know how to justify leaving… let this be your sign.

Don’t let the years you’ve already spent determine the years you have left.

Sometimes the bravest step is to walk away anyway.

Meet Reshma Saujani.

During her school visits while campaigning, she noticed a pattern that was hard to ignore: in most computer classrooms, there were barely any girls. The rooms were filled with boys tapping away on keyboards, while girls, equally capable, weren’t even in the picture. Reshma knew this wasn’t a lack of interest. It was a lack of encouragement. Tech simply wasn’t presented to girls as a space where they belonged.

For Reshma, this disparity felt personal. She had grown up watching her father, an engineer, use technology to build things, solve problems, and change lives. She understood the power of tech - not just as a career path, but as a tool for economic mobility, confidence, and creativity. And it bothered her that girls were shut out of it.

So in 2012, despite having no coding background herself, Reshma decided to do something about it. She launched Girls Who Code (GWC) with just 20 girls in a borrowed conference room in New York City. There were no fancy resources, no corporate partners, and no established curriculum. Just a conviction that girls deserved a seat in the tech world.

It wasn’t easy.

Schools didn’t take the program seriously. Many parents weren’t convinced that coding was a “real” career path for their daughters. And companies - while quick to praise the sentiment - hesitated to fund it. The early days were filled with skepticism, rejections, and the constant question of whether this vision would ever scale.

But Reshma persisted. She refined the program, built a curriculum from scratch, and recruited volunteer engineers to teach. Instead of focusing only on technical skills, she emphasized confidence, problem-solving, and community - elements that matter just as much as coding itself. She introduced real-world projects the girls could build, so they could see firsthand that they were not just learning, but creating.

Slowly, things began to change.

The girls were building apps, websites, and tech projects that actually worked. Many of them continued into computer science pathways. The results were unmistakable: Girls Who Code alumni were choosing computer science majors at 15 to 16 times the U.S. national average.

This shifted the perception. Companies began to realize that GWC wasn’t charity - it was a future talent pipeline. A way to address the gender gap not by talking about it, but by solving it.

As credibility grew, so did partnerships, school collaborations, and funding. What started in one borrowed room expanded across the country, and eventually, across the world. Today, Girls Who Code has reached 600,000+ girls, redefining who gets to call themselves a technologist.

All because Reshma acted. She didn’t wait for approval. She didn’t let early failures define her. She took what bothered her and turned it into a global movement - one confident girl, one line of code, and one bold step at a time.