What My Father Taught Me About Starting Over

I dedicated my first book to my late father, Mr. Krishna Doraisamy. Anyone who has read it knows that dedication wasn't a formality it was the whole reason the book exists.

My father was not a man of grand titles or public recognition. But he understood something that took me years, and several "starting overs" of my own, to fully learn: that beginning again is not a sign of failure. It's a discipline. And like any discipline, it's built quietly, one page — one day — at a time.

The habit he gave me before he gave me any advice

Long before I understood strategy, leadership, or business, my father gave me something simpler: the habit of reading. Not reading for exams, not reading to impress anyone reading as a daily act of showing up for your own mind. A few pages here, a newspaper there, a book left open on the table as a quiet invitation.

I didn't realize it then, but that habit was training something in me that every "starting over" in my life would later depend on: the willingness to sit with something difficult, a little at a time, and trust that it adds up.

Writing as the other half of the practice

If reading was how my father taught me to listen to ideas, to other people's lives, to the world beyond my own, writing became how I learned to listen to myself. Every chapter of that first book was, in its own way, a conversation with him. Every page was proof that the things we carry quietly can become something worth sharing, if we're willing to put them into words.

That's the real gift, I think. Not the specific skill of writing a book. But learning that your own story however ordinary it feels while you're living it is worth writing down.

Why this matters beyond my own story

I share this now because I meet so many people through EmpowHer.with3S, through my training work, through everyday conversations who tell me they "used to love reading" or "always wanted to write something" but stopped. Life got busy. Confidence ran out. Somewhere along the way, it started to feel indulgent, or unnecessary, or like something other people do.

I'd like to gently push back on that.

Reading and writing, even in small daily amounts, are not indulgences. They are how we process what we're going through. They are how we start over quietly, privately, one page at a time long before anyone else sees the change.

My father never called it a discipline. He just did it, every day, and let me watch. That was enough.

A small invitation

If there's a book on your shelf you haven't opened, or a page you've been meaning to write today's the day to begin again. Not the whole book. Not a perfect page. Just one.

That's all starting over has ever really asked of any of us.

Rise with Vision. Lead with Purpose. Leave a Legacy.

If this resonated with you, my first book dedicated to my father, is where this practice first became words. I'd love for you to read it.