Finding Your Purpose in the 21st Century Cognitive Economy

I've been asked a lot lately how I got to where I am. I always reply to this question with another one which is, "Where is it that you think I exactly got to?"

Life isn't about a destination. We're constantly in motion even when we think we're in a holding position. My late father was an economics professor. While I miss my talks with him greatly there is one that sticks out the most in my mind that I remember well. It was in the year 1996 when I was 24 and I was having a hard time figuring out exactly what it was that I wanted to do. Like any good guidance in your life he calmly said, "Don't worry about the one thing you want to do. That's not in the cards for this new reality. You won't do just one thing. None of us really do. You'll do many things so don't be afraid if you have to get your hands dirty and dig ditches if that becomes a learning experience. Ultimately your mind will be the greatest asset in the future so if digging those ditches makes you want to use your mind over your body, then that's a step to guide you. And if you want to keep digging ditches, well that's okay then too. Only you can decide your purpose."

Listen to the latest podcast DISRUPTIVE FM where we dissect inspiration in the cognitive economy...

Because economics and math always made their way into our conversations he always explained to me in those conversation to avoid people who would tell me about what we know as the "perfect career S-curve." We know it as the "hockey stick" theory. The tall tale where we start life at the bottom and shoot a straight perfect trajectory to the top. There are never any setbacks. No failures. Only perfect increases every step of the way.

Hollywood, Bollywood, book publishers and storytellers love these stories. Yet those who analyze data and human behavior know better and realize how powerful of a myth it is.

My father's simple advice was that life is more like a chart we see similar to a stock market earnings report. It will go up and down like a squiggly line on that graph. We're going to face triumphs and failures. We will have peaks and troughs. We may have incremental growth or small dips in performance. None of that should set us back. If anything, it should help us move forward by not just learning what to do, but learning what not to do.

Most of my career has been a failure if we were to dissect it like a linear narrative. I graduated college with nowhere to go so I worked odd jobs while living with my parents. When people make fun of Millennials for living with their parents, I come to that generation's defense because I feel like I lived through a similar experience. I didn't want to live with my parents, but the economics forced me to. I hacked my way into the music industry earning practically minimum wage with no benefits just to work around professionals at the top of their game. I've quit jobs, been fired from others and have taken some positions where I've excelled based on small nuggets of data where many have questioned, "You're absolutely nuts in your rationalizations, why would you work for that company?" (I heard this a lot before I came to Microsoft and Bing. Yet based on the company's recent performance it may have been the best move I've made to date, knock on wood).

Like a lot of dreamers, I've been bullied, misunderstood, shunned by the "in" crowd, told I'm not valuable to a company's future and a variety of other things that would leave many possibly destitute and in the gutter. I'm usually now the first to defend these individuals when I sense the same happening to them in any workplace wherever I may have worked. Most of my closest friends at companies have been the eccentric types. Together we've always built unique things and made ourselves feel like we were doing something bigger than what managers requested of us. Usually it was because there were interests and passions that drove us to seek more from what the job title or position usually offered.

When told over the decades I was not following process or efficiencies or best practices I laughed. How can you ever get ahead of the crowd if you're always trying so hard to swim with it?

Lately I feel many I speak to who are in prominent positions can't read what drives me or many others in this era of the cognitive economy. It's no longer about a big bank account (you can't take that with you) and it's certainly not about big fancy titles so I can buy a big fancy car (who wants to own anything anymore?). Much of this might be because of a major shift in our mindset. No longer is life or career in the cognitive economy about simply getting paid because we're good at something. Now it's shifting toward a world where many of us want to do things that give back to the world and stroke our passions while helping to uplift others. Granted, we know we have to eat, and that's why so many of us have the "side hustle" to get paid. The question is how much longer will this go on where we may do things simply to get a paycheck? It certainly seems to be waning in popularity with the younger people I mentor all under the age of 25 who won't work a job simply to get paid. Many would rather drop out than tune in to such scenarios.

So how do you remain inspired in a world more and more being built on imagination while still having to concede to working in a world where much of it is still trapped in boring, old and rigid business as usual mannerisms and processes? Alienation seems to be all around us as a result of these personality traits still driving the world of business. That won't go on forever if we are truly to be an innovative and egalitarian society. Maybe many of us simply need to look and answer what our passions and missions are and follow these more than simply fulfilling a vocation and profession. Once we balance all four of these spheres will we truly find inspiration and our purpose.

Geoffrey Colon is a communications designer at Microsoft and is author of the book "Disruptive Marketing: What Growth Hackers, Data Punks, And Other Hybrid Thinkers Can Teach Us About Navigating The New Normal" on AMACOM Books. Follow his eccentric points of view about the world of marketing and advertising, the "gig" economy, emerging media, tech and pop culture here on LinkedIn or Twitter. Subscribe, review and listen to his weekly podcast Disruptive FM on iTunes.