To all the qualified young people who are at the crossroads of decision making about your entry into corporates with a hopeful and longstanding career

There is enough and more free advice on dimensions of professional lives in corporates these days:?

1. How important mental health is and how hypocritical the corporates are in not walking the talk when it comes to mental health, promoting toxic work culture.
2. Freedom of time / Work-Life Balance
3. FIRE
4. Entrepreneurship / freelance / consultant / coach – why work for someone when you can do this for yourself?

Here is some more free advice I would like to table about working in corporates. I have been evolving in the corporates for the last 23 years and this is my experience from self and by closely watching careers of many successful professionals:?

1. The diversity of talent that gets an opportunity in the corporates is unparalleled – from the grads of Ivy league institutes to diploma holders, everyone has an opportunity and a path. Generations have benefited in getting their families out of poverty and have built a pedestal for the next generations to be able to choose their path. I do not have a strong academic pedigree. The kind of doors that got opened for me is truly magical – Deloitte, PwC, Capgemini, KPMG…could not have asked for better brands to travel with.
2. Work-life balance – everyone uses a broad brush to exploit this word. There is a complex web of dimensions behind this term. Please do not get carried away with what you read on social media universities. It’s always integration of work - life and never about balance. Whether you are in a corporate, or a strartup or you are on your own or even a home maker. There are always times where working long hours was and is needed to get things done. Many situations determine this, your learning curve, new assignment, new client, new team, new pursuit, quality issues, client escalations, team issues, P&L issues. And trust me, I have not seen all these situations together all the time. In the last 17 years, I do not remember:

????????????i.?Working on weekends / holidays

????????????ii.?Asking for leave approvals, planned / unplanned

???????????iii.?My boss calling me after office hours or holidays or weekends

1. Money, Money, Money – it’s so funny – The number on the offer letter (In India) is fabulous only till one joins the organization and gets to know how much others make. It is a longer debate about pay equity for specific roles at specific levels…equivalent to a UN mission and this post is not about that. Coming from first-generation working-class family, first international flight, first business class, first five-star hotel stay were highly overwhelming. They are possibilities enabled by the corporates, making me experience things out of my league.
2. Mental health, aka stress, is a complex ecosystem of things. Do not get carried away with uni-dimensional and half-baked exaggeration in media. Corporates or startups or countries are made up of nothing but people. People in the corporates, like anywhere are a microcosm of the external society. You will find the good, bad and the ugly traits. All you can and should do is understand the politics in an organization but choose not to play. Speak up – appreciate the good and talk about the bad and ugly with the right people. It does get addressed. organizations today are far more intolerant towards anything that triggers negative energy. For me in the last 23 years, I have worked with a variety of people. I learnt immensely from each one of them, how to be and how not to be. But one thing that I have focused on constantly is building the confidence to speak up in all situations and not getting intimidated by designations or situations. Understand the reality too, no harm in aspiring to be the CEO or to be at the next level, but there is going to be one CEO only, it’s always a pyramid. If you want to be on top, you should be the best of the best.
3. Anti-Boss sentiment – triggering statements like “why work for someone when you can do this for yourself?” then some heavyweight words – entrepreneurship / consultant..etc. There are some people for whom this is a true calling and are fully cut out. For the others, do not join the band wagon without having a deep understanding of the skills needed to be “On your own”. Coming to the ambition of “being without a boss” / “I am my own boss”. My PoV is that the investors in your business / the bills that you need to pay become your boss. In my long path across these organizations and roles, I have witnessed entrepreneurship in a corporate set up multiple times. There are investors if your idea is right. Organizations have been reinventing themselves all the time to stay relevant in the changing world priorities. This dynamic itself creates a platform in the organizations where great entrepreneurs are needed all the time to ideate and execute the solutions like an owner.
4. FIRE – I understand the first 2 letters well – Financially Independent – needed to secure confidence to deal with uncertainties, 100%. RE – Retire Early – again, if you are crystal clear clarity on your future steps then you are awesome. Else, do not get carried away…continue enjoying your current ride.All the best!