A serendipitous moment

One of the best parts of last week was the opportunity to give back - in a very different way! It was a chance to give back to my profession (the original one), which also happens to be the second oldest profession in the world. Mr. Kuvera de Zoysa PC, the Chairman of the Junior Bar Committee, Bar Association of Sri Lanka invited me to talk to the new lawyers who were called to the Bar on "building their personal brand to achieve success in the corporate world".

Standing in front of them, I recalled my orientation day back when I was utterly clueless as to what I wanted to do or where to begin.

I started narrating my story - one that has been (and still is!) full of drama & challenge. I remember how complexity grew when I realised that I had forgotten every single bit of the "content" that I supposedly should have learnt at Law School. Now that wasn't very smart! It also left me questioning the application of what I learnt in my 3 years of academic study & 1 year of legal internship.

But one day it did dawn on me. What I learnt at law school was not really the "Law". It was the ability to think critically coupled with logical reasoning, the power of working collaboratively with multi faceted individuals from all walks of life & the capability to resolve complex problems which essentially are the skills required for the "future of work". These are skills that a robot or AI will not be able to replace. Now that's pretty awesome! I shared with them on how these helped an ordinary girl to navigate her path through drama & challenge.

I also spoke to them about how individuals are essentially brands & the importance of building a differentiated authentic brand to find a niche for themselves and grow in their careers.

After the program, I pledged to myself that I will make myself available to support young lawyers in their development journeys through better structured interventions together with the BASL.

I can't wait to get started!