Deepa Sai

How failures, bias, and closed doors built my resilience more than success ever did

I’ve done more than 100 job interviews in my life. Each one carried its own flavor of rejection.

Some told me I was “too overqualified” — that with a double Master’s degree, I wouldn’t stay long. The assumption being that ambition equals disloyalty. The truth? I only ever quit when I was abused or undervalued, not because the work was “beneath me.”

Others dismissed me for being a generalist. They wanted hyper-specific skillsets, even for roles that ultimately boiled down to clerical or operational work — the same kind of work I’d already done alongside higher-level responsibilities.

And then there were the ones who didn’t even look beyond face value. HR biases, shallow judgments, all leading to the same outcome: “We don’t think you’re the right fit.”

But the rejection that cut deepest was when I was turned away for speaking up. On my blog, I wrote about labour rights and employee rights — believing then (and still now) that HR is meant to be the bridge between people and organisations, not management’s pawn. A company I interviewed with told me point blank: “If you side with employees on activism and human rights, how will you play the role of HR?”

My answer was simple:
“If I don’t get this role, I’ll keep giving interviews until someone finds me to be the right fit. But I won’t take my blogs down.”

I didn’t get the job. But I kept my integrity.

In 2018, I shut down the cycle of interviews and became a solo founder.

Since then, I’ve pitched my business and services to countless organisations, corporates, clients, and even investors — not because I needed funding, but because I needed to reform and refine my business model.

And the rejections didn’t stop. They just changed form.

I’ve been told “no” even with a portfolio full of global work and credibility. I’ve walked into rooms where no one knew me, and had to prove myself from zero all over again. Sometimes my reputation preceded me, but rarely. Most of the time, I was just another outsider trying to be heard.

And yes, I’ve even been asked if I was just a staff member at ecoHQ — the very company I founded from scratch.

Here’s the thing.
Building a life where your reputation and your work alone speak for you is one of the hardest things you can attempt. There are no shortcuts, no hype cycles, no easy introductions that can carry you forever.

And yet, it’s the only way I know how to build.

Because here’s my truth:
I am built from my failures more than my successes. And I am built of resilience.

Rejections don’t end you. They season you. They strip away entitlement. They sharpen resilience. And they make sure that when your work does speak — it speaks loudly.

This is why I keep showing up. Why I keep building. Why I can take rejections that would break others — and keep going. Because rejection has never been my wall. It has always been my raw material.