This ex-IPS officer has switched 8 careers, from strategy to startups—and he's not done yet: ‘If I get to…’

If you're wondering whether it is ever too late to shift careers, this former IPS officer is here to prove otherwise. In a now-viral LinkedIn post, he revealed the eight sharply different paths he has already explored, ranging from the high-stakes world of policing to entirely unexpected arenas. And the best part? He’s not done yet. With an insatiable curiosity and a passion for reinvention, he says he hopes to dive into even more careers in the future. His name is Rajan Singh.

8 careers of Ex-IPS officer Rajan Singh

Rajan Singh began as an electrical engineering student for four years, served as an IPS officer for eight years, and became a strategy consultant at McKinsey. He then jumped into investing at a private equity fund. The fifth career came as a finance teacher. Later, he took the role of tech entrepreneur and worked on learning products.

Singh then became a physics teacher and entrepreneur. The eighth career comes as a trainer in neuroscience-backed focus and productivity at his startup named HabitStrong, offering “online habit programmes for a happy life”.

His post on LinkedIn has been circulating on different social media platforms, with people debating whether it's actually suitable to take up, while others appreciated him.

'Hope to experience another 8-10 career paths if I get to live'

“And if I get to live and work long enough, I hope to experience another 8-10 career paths. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It depends, I guess, Doing just one thing allows you to go deeper into your craft and benefit from ‘compounding’,” Singh said.

He acknowledged that while committing to a single path can lead to deep expertise and long-term benefits, exploring diverse experiences brings its own unique set of rewards.

“But diverse experiences help you see unrelated patterns, connect dots, and generate insights that would otherwise be impossible. In some sense, you go through a veritable 'horizontal compounding,' if you will. Either way, the age of learning one thing in college and milking it for the next 35 years is long over. We all have to keep moving, keep learning, most likely -- keep reinventing. That is what makes life exciting. Because every day is a new day -- the game of life starts again,” Singh added.